13 Burst results for "Robert Mcfarlane"
On Being with Krista Tippett
"robert mcfarlane" Discussed on On Being with Krista Tippett
"Some different kind of overlapping fraction of those things and some weird bit of the Venn diagram of understanding between these things that are both different ways of framing the world, but also parts of the same process kind of at different stages. I think two of the phrase. I have I'm terribly sorry. I've completely blanking on her name. The evolutionary Eileen margulies. Which is okay, so one of the yes, and I first heard about her from Robert mcfarlane, but you know, it's one of these names that then comes up everywhere. So yeah, so she's important in kind of what you're saying. You wanted to just repeat that phrase of hers, which is that everything is equally evolved. That's a really resonant phrase for me that was really important. And my thinking. Everything is equally evolved. Everything is equally involved. Everything has been everything has been on this planet for as long as everything else, everything has been in this universe for as long as everything else. Nothing is more evolved than anything else. Everything has been evolving for the same length of time. Everything has been becoming for the same length of time. So we, while we live inside this unfolding and we live it kind of different levels of it and different levels of understanding in different parts of that process. That simple scientific but also deeply I don't want to use this word spiritual just mean like the deep quality of being in this universe is that everything is part of that unfolding process that is still going on and that is still one of learning and that immediately destroys any idea of kind of hierarchical division for me that might shape or inform that kind of splitting and clumping that's been the last century scientific legacy and that we are finally getting rid of. Yeah, and so and kind of even just back to that idea of intelligence being too small. I mean, one of the, I mean, I think Lin margulis and Monica galliano and somebody else you write about or Robin wall kimmerer, who I've interviewed, one of the things we're learning is that these decisions we've made about what was intelligent and what was not and our superior human intelligence over against a lot of different intelligence. It's just being radically opened up, right? I mean, I think Robin wall kimmerer said to me, I can't think of a single scientific study in the last few decades that has demonstrated that plants or animals are dumber than we think. It's always the opposite. We keep revealing the fact that all kinds of creatures have a capacity to learn to have memory and that we're at the edge of this wonderful evolution in really understanding the sentience of other beings. I mean, that's another way of stating Richardson's paradox, right? Which is what you mentioned there? Yeah, so I wanted you to talk about Louis fry Richard done. I wanted to actually ask you to. Yeah, go on. Okay. Well, I mean, I first got deeply into Richardson's work. Because he was one way of understanding for me actually what happened with technology in the 20th century. In that he was a meteorologist who was doing a bunch of meteorology work before the First World War. And then when the war started because he was a Quaker, he was a conscientious objector, so it became an ambulance driver in the First World War. In a regiment with a whole bunch of interesting people, the Friends also included the science fiction writer elif Stapleton and various other people. And during the war with pencil and paper, he did some of the first mathematical calculations of what would become contemporary meteorology. So he was the first person to figure out, or the first person to actively do the mathematical calculation of the weather. I had to predict the weather using maths. And he believed that this was very powerful, but at the time they weren't computers to do it. So he thought it was a kind of interesting mathematical exercise. But what he did was he broke the whole world down into lots of tiny little squares. Each of which contained like an exact reading of the temperature humidity and other things at that point. And then used essentially an algorithm to process those numbers forward in order to predict the future. And it wasn't kind of 50 60 years later that computers were capable of doing that. At the speed that actually, you know, that was faster than the weather itself. And it actually became a prediction. And that's how we have modern weather forecasting, but it's also kind of how we have all modern computation. Because it is, again, this thing of taking the world, breaking it down into smaller and smaller pieces, and studying them as kind of individual separate disparate atoms. In order to control them and to turn them into a kind of simulation of themselves, which is kind of how I ended up viewing technology. But Richardson kind of stayed interesting throughout his life. Because as a pacifist, you know, as a Quaker, he kept doing these kind of weird interesting pacifist things like writing several books in which he tried to establish a mathematical basis for pacifism. And was it him to try to calculate what if it was more if the distance of borders or something had more and more likely or something? Yeah, that was his idea. He basically thought that the likelihood of two countries going to war was like a function of the length of their shared borders. And so in order to prove this, scientifically, he had to find the lengths of all those shared borders, and he wrote to all these countries. And looked it up and kind of almanacs and went through a British library and all these kind of things. And he discovered that all the lengths were different and no one knew the lengths of their countries at all. And as a mathematician, this really bothered him. So he started trying to work figure out why everyone was measuring the lengths of their borders wrong. And he discovered that it is kind of impossible to measure the length of a border. Because if you use a ruler that's a kilometer long, you'll miss out on all the kind of squiggles along that route. And if you use a ruler that's a meter long, you'll miss out on all the tiny little kind of divots in the coastline. Within that meter, if you think of the kind of wavy line of a beach. And what we discovered is the smaller the ruler you use, the longer the border gets. And what he discovered 2030 years before Benoit Mandelbrot described them was fractals. Yes. These things that become more complex the deeper you're looking at. And Mendel brough is, I guess, that science is that equation came out of Lewis fry Richardson's work or was inspired by he'd seen Richardson's work in something in there. Yeah. And that's one of the kind of for me. I can't speak to it scientific value that I know it's going to reference all kind of way. But for me, it's one of just the greatest realizations. One of the more that you on one way, it's a way of kind of resisting these kind of totalising hierarchies by saying that, you know, if you look at something more deeply, it's going to become more complex and you can't, nothing's ever that simple. But also, nothing is ever that simple. And that's wonderful and exciting and it makes everything really, really fascinating and interesting because there is always more to discover if
On Being with Krista Tippett
"robert mcfarlane" Discussed on On Being with Krista Tippett
"Why and how that language of intelligence became too small. Really, I think the story you're telling, and I just want us to start talking about this story. And so when you say options, that there are options, it doesn't have to be this way, or there are other futures that can be imagined. This is all unfolding, right? This is not a cerebral intellectual exercise about what could be. You're telling a story of our time, kind of multitudinous story of our time. But in some ways, I think it's probably important to kind of put on the table that seeing this story and investigating and taking it seriously does also mean getting conscious of really kind of the enlightenment way of thinking and seeing that we all of us are still so formed by certainly the 20th century was shaped by 18th, 19th century, which had so much to do with taking things apart and seeing the differences between them and ordering and classifying. And that that as a framework as how the world works. And one of the just core realities that you then go on to investigate and describe all in all that we're learning now about how the world works. The closer we examine, this is you and the more forcefully we interrogate and attempt to classify the world, the more complex and unclassifiable it becomes. And actually, that science itself in our generation is breaking down those taxonomies. And what got reduced. And that's a big piece of the story you're telling. And it's also something that I'm just so fascinated by, and I feel like amidst all that we have to be. Discouraged about realistically, it's one of the most wonderful and thrilling and kind of hope giving aspects of being alive now. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, when you were speaking there about this kind of unfolding that we are always part of, you know, the image that sprang to mind for me was particularly the fact that we live within these kind of multiple overlapping time frames of understanding. By which I mean that, like you said, there's a process is happening within science now that are undoing the work of previous generations of scientists and the frameworks they built. Or at least, if not fully on doing them, shaping them into kind of radical new forms, but just to the point when those frameworks only really just being understood more widely by the public, or by any of us who aren't like ourselves at the cutting edge of kind of scientific research. And at the same time, there's still even now this deep divide between the humanities and the sciences, which produce deeply differing worldviews and understandings of what's happening. And also the huge split you've obviously already alluded to, which is between the kind of dominant western sciences and non western non dominant kind of understandings of the world. And all of us live within some different kind of overlapping fraction of those things in some weird bitter the Venn diagram of understanding between these things that are both different ways of framing the world, but also parts of the same process kind of at different stages. I think two of the phrase the evolutionary Eileen margulis. Yes, then I first heard about her from Robert mcfarlane, but you know, it's one of these names that then comes up everywhere. So yeah, so she's important in kind of what you're seeing. I just wanted to just repeat that phrase of hers, which is that everything is equally evolved. That's a really resonant phrase for me that was really important. And my thinking. Everything is equally evolved. Everything is equally involved. Everything has been everything has been on this planet for as long as everything else, everything has been in this universe for as long as everything else. Nothing is more evolved than anything else. Everything has been evolving for the same length of time. Everything has been becoming for the same length of time. So we, while we live inside this unfolding and we live at different levels of it and different levels of understanding and different parts of that process, that simple scientific but also deeply, I don't want to use this word spiritual. It just means a deep quality of being in this universe is that everything is part of that unfolding process that is still going on and that is still one of learning. And that immediately destroys any idea of kind of hierarchy or division for me that might shape or inform that kind of splitting and clumping that's been the last century scientific legacy and that we are finally getting rid of. And kind of even just back to that idea of intelligence being too small. I mean, one of the one of the things we're learning is that these decisions we've made about what was intelligent and what was not and our superior human intelligence over against all other intelligence. It's just being radically opened up, right? I mean, I think Robin wall kimmerer said to me, I can't think of a single scientific study in the last few decades that has demonstrated that plants or animals are dumber than we think. It's always the opposite. We keep revealing the fact that all kinds of creatures have a capacity to learn to have memory and that we're at the edge of this wonderful evolution in really understanding the sentience of other beings. I mean, that's another way of stating Richardson's paradox, right? Which is what you mentioned there. Yeah, so I wanted you to talk about Louis fry Richard Dunne. I wanted to ask you to ask you. Yeah. Yeah, go on. Okay.
On Being with Krista Tippett
"robert mcfarlane" Discussed on On Being with Krista Tippett
"Rustic, thank you. Thank you. What if we joined our sorrows and what if that is joy? We just basked in the wisdom of Robert mcfarlane, Yo-Yo Ma share and Salzburg and Ross gay. Wow. Wow. It's also been amazing for me to be watching in the chat. I just want to thank everybody. And I'm going to, and I will read these all slowly later. I want to say one thing, just one thing, because we do need to draw to a close, but that matter of finding joy and not treating joy as optional. But understanding that joy is life giving, it is resilience making, it is our human birthright, and it must accompany if we are to really walk into this world ahead of us and the vast challenges and the magnificent callings, we have to claim joy. We have to we have to be whole and we have to stay whole at that is coming through in every person I've interviewed. In these last months. I'm going to hold that as a blessing and as a call to action as the beginning of a benediction, because one of the things that I saw in the chat from Kelly was that on being has been a portal into the future, we need to live into now. Which naturally raises the question about what is the future? What's ahead? Yeah, no, I've been also looking at I looked at somebody who said how sad it is right now to listen on Sunday mornings and they wish they found on being earlier and I am so here to say this is not ending. But we are evolving with the world and it's been incredible to be on public radio for 20 years, but we are still going to be there every Sunday morning. If you know how to find us, we have an incredible 20 year archive, everything you just heard, wisdom doesn't wisdom age as well. So there is a lot, a lot of content that is very alive in some cases more alive now than it was when those words were spoken. But we have been standing before the question. As these pandemic years have unfolded, as we are all changed and our world is changed. Of how we can most deeply be of service in this world, and part of the answer is to keep doing, to keep creating these shows that we know how to do, but not be doing that all the time. So we will be working seasonally. The podcast will be there. We're going to be coming back in the new year with a whole new season of new shows. But we're also creating a lab for the art of living to also meet a request that's come to us across these years. To create other ways to be present to create usable tools and resources, we also are going to be doing more convening and gathering and being present out in the world and learning there as well. I want to make I am aimed to tell you that at the end of this, there will be a way for you to subscribe to the pause, which is our weekly email newsletter, and it too will be evolving. And the pause has evolved several times on being has been constantly evolving, by the way. For 20 years, including from speaking of faith, and every evolution has been gorgeous, and this one will be gorgeous too. And what we're entering right now is the summer of the pause. And I really just love that title. The summer of the pause, and that's going to be a place to actually wear again as a Saturday morning ritual. We're going to send out. It reimaginings of our content. Pieces of content, special offerings that feel like they can be nurturing in this time in this summer. And when we get into the fall, we're going to be putting some special offerings into the podcast feed. So the two action items are please sign up for the pause, which will keep you on top of everything. And if you're not already subscribing to the podcast somewhere on Spotify and Apple, there are many places. Please do so that you'll be notified when things start to drop there again. I want to say that for me, the big picture here is that I'm loving everybody saying in the chat. How beautiful it is to understand that we are part of this community. And as I said, it's always felt that way to me. And I believe that there is such a thing as a generative narrative of our time and all of our guests are part of it and our listeners are part of it. And that is what we must more purposefully cultivate in this world ahead. And that's what we're putting all of our creativity to. In all of our mission, I think maybe those are the big things I needed to say. I'm sure I'm forgetting something, so please subscribe to the summer of the pause and whatever I forgot to say. We will, yes, people have been asking, we will be putting this listening party in its entirety out in the podcast feed soon. And in the pause, there's so much more to come. So please don't feel sad. Please, you are already part of this. And we are actually going to grow in deepened together in an incredible time to be alive. And very daunting ways and I always think of that language of Vincent Harding. Magnificent ways, magnificent. If we rise to our higher potentials. Gorgeous. Jen, thank you for being here. Oh, because I'm so happy to be here. I mean, it's just I wanted to do it with you. And you're my I walk alongside you. I walk alongside the future. And I also just want to thank my incredible colleagues, my incredibly talented and my incredibly talented colleagues who are also incredible human beings and what a labor of love. This has been. Everybody has been involved. And. Yeah, I think the only thing it's just been a massive work of creativity. I think the only thing left is for us to end this experience the way we end the show. Which is that you normally hear their voices and today you're also going to see their faces. And I want to say it this way. I'm Krista tippett. And this is.
Something Rhymes with Purple
"robert mcfarlane" Discussed on Something Rhymes with Purple
"Should be more familiar with. What have you got this week? Yes, well, because we're talking about superstitions, I thought I'd give you three words. They all come from a book that I have prayed to this guys before and it is absolutely beautiful. It's by Robert mcfarlane if you know him and he's written something called landmarks as well as some of the lost words which has been a huge success in the UK certainly in every school was given a copy. So I have to thank his book for these three. And I'm going to start with now this is something that I had when I was growing up. I was very, very lucky to have a tiny, tiny little area in our garden that my parents just let it do. It's do its thing. We call it re wilding, I suppose these days. So lots of trees and plants and things just grew naturally without being tethered at all. And my dad with his lawnmower cut this little beautiful fairy ring inside it and for ages, it was the secret magical path that I really believed was a fairy wing. And so Robert in his book has included the word galley trop. Now I'm not sure where this comes from at all, but a galley trop is a fairy ring in the local dialect of Devon and gloucestershire and Somerset, a galley trop, fairy rings quite magical. The next one is summer geese. Summer geese. Now this is steam that rises from the Moors when rain is followed by hot sunshine. Is that something otherworldly about it, some of geese, steam that rises from the Moors when rain is followed by sunshine, which is beautiful. And the third one, again, quite beautiful, I think. Hayes fire and Hayes fire is the luminous morning mist that the dawn sunshine breaks through. A haze via which again quite beautiful, I think. Wonderful. Today's my treat. Extraordinary. How about a poem? Do you have a poem for us today? Well, I was torn and I was looking through war poetry inevitably. And I came across this poem, everyone sang by siegfried sassoon. It's a poem from the great war, as it was so called at the time the war to end all wars back more than a hundred years ago. It's a famous poem and a short one. And it's about a moment. In war. A moment of, well, this is the moment. The moment everyone sang. Everyone suddenly burst out singing. And I was filled with such delight. As prison birds must find in freedom, winging wildly across the white orchards and dark green fields on on and out of sight. Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted. And beauty came like the setting sun. My heart was shaken with tears, and horror drifted away. Oh, but everyone was a bird. And the song was wordless. The singing will never be done. And it's a poem about hope and heartache at a time of war. Not sure that I completely understand it, but it certainly touches what, doesn't it? Oh, it's just beautiful. And that reminds me of the pictures and the videos that we've been seeing certainly on social media of even in the midst of carnage really. Musicians playing in the streets of Kyiv and other cities in Ukraine just bringing the music back just for a little while, absolutely astonishing. I love that jazz. Thank you. And I hope that you have loved it too and that you've enjoyed the show. Please do keep following us on Apple podcasts or Spotify, Amazon music, stitcher, wherever you get your podcasts and please do recommend us to friends if you have enjoyed it and most importantly get in touch via as Giles said purple at something else dot com and if you would like to please subscribe to join the purple plus club too. It's quite fun in there. Something rhymes with purple is something else production produced by Lawrence Bassett and Harriet wells with additional production from Chris skinner, Jen mystery JB, and oh, who is he? Is he here? Is he there? It's. Only at metro by T mobile, you can upgrade to 5G and get more. More choices with the largest selection of three 5G phones, like the Samsung galaxy a 13 5G and more 5G coverage on the T mobile network. Only at metro. Most affordable versus major prepaid brands with eligible port ID and plan plus tax 5G not available in some areas. If congested users greater than 35 gigabytes per month, maybe it is reduced speeds and metro customers may notice reduced speeds versus T mobile due to prioritization, video at 480p..
Travel with Rick Steves
"robert mcfarlane" Discussed on Travel with Rick Steves
"We could see where the glaciers should have been. We heard stories of ships, whose GPSs were screaming at alarm at them because the GPS recorded ice where there was no ice, so the ships could sail on through clear water. You know, you talk about glaciers as being the closest thing to living dead matter, they sing, they crawl, they shatter they rage. When your mindful of the impact of climate change, it must be heartbreaking if you love the world. To be on a glacier and to hear the shattering and the rage and the moaning. Yeah, gracias have always done that, of course, that's what they do they make that noise, but they make it faster now. And it is a kind of pain song. I think that's right. Theme song, yes. And a frightening one at that. I spoke to the inhabitants of the little village of kullak and east Greenland, and actually for them that the mark of the glaciers going was silenced. It wasn't noise it was silence. They used to be able to hear its carving explosions from the village, but as it had retreated over 2030 years. It had gone around a corner and they couldn't hear the glacier anymore. That really struck me to my heart. This is travel Rick Steves. We're talking with Robert mcfarlane, and his book is underland, deep time journey. Roberts of fellow at Emmanuel college in Cambridge in England, and we're looking under the surface right now at what he reveals in his book underland. Robert I have fascinated by how you say in underland, the underland is a world where you store what is precious and you dispose of what is harmful. What are some examples of storing what is precious and disposing what is harmful? Well, the first thing we store is the bodies of our loved ones. We've been a burying species and our predecessors were burying species. We're just starting to understand how long we've been burying our dead the first cemetery known in Britain. I've been into his 10,000 years old. These were people living hard nomadic lives, but they still wish to place their dead somewhere safe. But states store data. The Svalbard seed vault is where we store all the world seeds that we think we might need after an apocalypse to regrow a world. But even the Svalbard seed vault up in the Arctic isn't safe because it flooded when the permafrost melted around it. So this this vault of what we can repopulate the world's vegetation and so on, it assumed that it would be locked in a frozen in a permafrost. And that's changing her. Absolutely. I mean, they placed this vault so far above the highest possible range that an Arctic tsunami could reach, but they didn't count on permafrost melting around the vault. That disturbing, and along with that, what you call untimely surfacing. Ancient methane deposits in the Arctic that are just going to be burped out as the permafrost thaws. But that exactly. I mean, this is happening again and again it's happening through heat and it's happening..
Travel with Rick Steves
"robert mcfarlane" Discussed on Travel with Rick Steves
"So the point is there are a lot of places you can love because of Spain's excellent public transportation. When I first went to Spain, no freeways, no fast trains. Now, laced with freeways and laced with poetry. The result was a nice place in the outskirts of Mas reading the mountains called ileus cordial, I really like illegal where you see that massive fortress of Philip the second, the king in Spain in Madrid, 1560, one, and showing to the power of those Habsburgs he is a huge fortress in people are actually quite fascinated by those systems. Is it fair to say back then the king of Spain was the most powerful man in Europe? He was actually, I mean, just think about how the cancer that is far, far, far, far, far away from Spain called the Philippines, the Philips were the islands of Philip named after king Philip. This has traveled through Steves, I've just really enjoyed talking with all of you getting all sorts of ideas and going back to Madrid. Amanda binger, Javier menor, and Federico Garcia Barroso, gracias. 12 years. He grew up above the caves and coal mines of Nottingham in the English Midlands, so it's no wonder Robert mcfarlane has been fascinated by the landscapes that frighten most people. It took him ten years to write his book underland, which one critic called one of the most ambitious works of narrative non fiction of our time. Robert mcfarlane is back with us next on travel with Rick Steves to take us someplace we've never been before on a deep time journey. As a traveler, I'm all about getting beyond the surface of people and places and to better understand our world, but writer Robert mcfarlane, he really takes that mission literally. In his book, underland, a deep time journey, Robert explores the earth's underworlds, its caves, its catacombs, deeply hidden places. He found himself drawn into the sunless sights that may have repulsed other people through the ages. In this subterranean world, he found a world of unbearables, untimely surfacing that can be dazzling and they can be horror shows at the same time. Robert McFarland thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me, Rick. I'm just fascinated by, well, by travel, and then somebody can expose to me the whole nother frontier. And that's this underground journey this fascination with the underland. What bookends your whole approach to this? I mean, you were inspired to write this. Tell me a little bit about the context that you wrote this book in. Yeah, I mean, the first thing is, I love mountains, that they have my heart, and in the first book I ever wrote was about why we climb mountains and 15 years on. Here I am trying to explain the opposite, the gravitational opposite..
Travel with Rick Steves
"robert mcfarlane" Discussed on Travel with Rick Steves
"Americans have long had a reputation for being very good at boasting about themselves. A scratch my head with lightning and perm myself to sleep with thunder, whether it's from a Mark Twain character, sports star or politician, writer Richard grant tells us what kind of American exceptionalism he enjoys best. That's a tradition of bragging that I admire is the funny entertaining clever bragging. Tour guiding friends from Madrid explain what they like most about living in the Spanish capital. Each little neighborhood in Madrid is like its own village. And Robert mcfarlane recommends exploring the underland to provide a deeper perspective for our place in the world. We all try it, don't we? You stand on the Grand Canyon, rim, and you dream back in geological time, and it's dizzying. He suggests that a deep time journey can help us make the most out of the here and now. It's all in the hour ahead on travel with Rick Steves. Come along. My Facebook Friends are a fun community of curious travelers and your invited to join in. To stowaway with me in my work, play politics, philanthropy, and travels, follow me at Rick Steves on Facebook. As a self described Isaac Robert McFarland loves what glaciers can reveal to us over time as well as the surprises the earth hides beneath our feet. He explains how a deep time journey can help us better appreciate the here and now a little later in the hour, and tour guides from Spain, including an American expat, tell us why they love living in Madrid. Let's start today's travel with Rick Steves with author Richard grant. He's lived in Manhattan, the Mississippi delta and the sonoran desert of Tucson to immerse himself in different aspects of the USA. In contrast to the English modesty Richard was brought up on, he finds the crowing of American rappers, blues legends, rodeo cowboys and frontiersmen can be highly entertaining. Richard wrote a short history on American bragging for issued 26 of port magazine, and he joins us now to explain. Hi, Rick good to be here. So this is so fascinating, you're an English man who knows quite intimately American culture because you live here now, and your British take on American, what is the word braggadocio? What is that? If something that struck me hard, coming from London, which, you know, it's all about kind of understatement, self deprecation, ironic, dry wit. Our humor is based on those things, but when I started traveling in America as a young man, there was a whole different sense of humor that was based on kind of overblowing stuff. Exaggerating stuff, and bragging was a part of that. So let's talk first about the British self deprecation. I mean, one thing I always strikes me every time I go to England is English people apologizing, sorry, sorry, you're on my foot. Sorry, would you like red wine or white wine? Sorry. Would you mind? Sorry. Excuse me. Can I sorry, can I give you some more give you some more wine in your glass?.
On Being with Krista Tippett
"robert mcfarlane" Discussed on On Being with Krista Tippett
"Okay. yeah it is. It's near me okay. Well again welcome thin following your work. I think i think i may have. I heard about you a couple of years ago. When i interviewed robert mcfarlane you know him from the uk book. I've read his book. Yeah i think. I think he talked to me. And then and then i just started to see your work on your science and in your book appear so. I'm really glad to finally be sitting with you. Thank you for having me so let. Let's just dive in you. You like to say that you grew up. you grew up in british columbia. Do you like say you grow up in a province of old growth forests. And i just wonder as you as you speak that and you feel in your body that presence that old growth forest as you were a child growing up in it you know what does that mean. How did you experience it then. Oh i knew. Of course we would go away from the old growth forest and then i would think gotta get back because it was. It's in my blood and bones and dna you know my ancestors for many generations lived in these inland rainforests And it just is just the way we were and so i guess when i went away so into the drier areas for example where there's grasslands i thought they were beautiful too but i always wanted to get back and felt so much at home when i was among the big old trees so yeah it was just. It was just the way we were. Yeah there's a line. I think this is in your book. You say you remember kind of laying on the forest floor and looking up at the giant tree crowds and you said my grandfather with horse lager and he was a giant too and i was just curious. What's he actually very large or was that just his presence. It was his presence. He was yeah he was a giant presence but when i was a child so he would have been in his fifty s and sixty s and onward and he had that point had he was a six foot tall man but he had his back was broken. Logging accident at a tree fell on him and so as a child i knew him he was hunched over and he he eventually was only five six or five seven this little hunched over man. But he was his character his wisdom you know. His presence was huge to me limits and there is this moment you describe with your grandfather who when you have this glimpse of what you say called a palette of roots and soil and you saw that this was the foundation of the forest and and i wonder if you trace i mean years later if in first of all you would spend a little time in a more. I don't know if you know you were probably doing more traditional logging with your family but a more modern logging industry And you became a scientist to study. That i mean. I wonder if you do that that that thing. You saw the this foundation of the forest. It seems to be that it's some ways you ended up pursuing that glimpse in what you did later as a scientist who are who. I was how. I grew up being among the trees and of course as a child spending a lot of time on the forest floor. Because that's where you are. You're small and building forts with my brother and sister and rafts at that we would take on the lake and you know it was just it. Was these the roots and the connection in the forest was just like it was just one of us right. We just just knew it that way. And then of course when i did you right. I did become a scientist tonight. Forrest scientists eventually. And i embarked on boy started out with an undergraduate degree thinking. I want to be just a forester. Because i loved you know i loved forestry at my grandfather was a horse lager and and i loved what he did and i wanted to be part of that but what i entered into was a much different world view and way of treating the forest which was really not about caring for the forest. It was more about exploiting the forest. Well and i mean. I think it's worth it so interesting to to to delve into your work and to understand that there that there was a mindset about how the forest work which actually reflects the mindset. We've had in in many of the ways our society has been constructed Of kind of logic of competition and of struggle and exploitation and that that had kind of made its way into forestry management and then you came along a quarter century ago and you were in a lineage of other scientists. And i wanna talk about that because i feel like other people don't make you're also part of an ecosystem away. It isn't acknowledged But you kind of you grew initially just correct. This is wrong. Eighty replicates of three species paper birch. Douglas for western red cedar and through science. You you you were able to say that. The forest behaves. So it is a single organism and that really was a new formulation for science or for western civilization. Yeah what and just how would you into describe what what you meant. What is what is what is contained in that statement that the force behaves as though it as a single organism and and how was that a new way of formulating it. Well you know a as as we talked about about growing up in the forest and being part of it and you know the trees. Are you know they'd grew next to each other for hundreds of years. The overlapping plants in on around them and the fungi and bacteria. The whole system is interrelated. It's all connected i. That's how i grew up knowing the forest and and so it was unnatural for me to to come into the forest industry as see this connected place through forest practices based on. What you as you aptly say competition. The whole fourth practices was about managing competition and nights that they would they would feel that some trees would compete with other trees so they would so they would I mean that's that's how that was very simplistically interpreted. Is that right. Yeah i mean yeah so in. That really came out of our understanding of of really going. You know with evolutionary theory where you know. Darwinian is is about natural selection survival of the fittest and and even though he might not have thought completely parochially about it that way but that that idea of competition is shaping evolution and then ecology as well just kind of got transmitted over to that other discipline. That was the underpinning of this idea. That force are structured by competition. And yeah it's competition mainly we're focused. They were focused. The foresters on competition for light so the idea that if one tree would overtop another and cast a shadow that would deprive that you know. It's slower growing tree. Which happened to be mostly the conifers. That in at least in western north america that we so focus on for the industry You know that was like depriving them of their ability to grow right but that wasn't true right. That's what you found. It just wasn't true. Yeah and you know i. It was part of the picture. But it's not the whole picture and and you know And i think that even as we as we investigate how trees interacting and relate to one another. We'll find out. I think that even collaboration and competition are also part of a narrow way of seeing how these trees interact right. There they're sophisticated. They have many ways of relating to one another and so they should. I mean they live side by side. As i said for hundreds of years. They need to be in relationships. It's also interesting. I've i've been reading your book that somehow what you just said. I didn't understand that. That's where the competition whether it was a competition for sunlight which is a very linear way of looking at what we can see right. But what you're talking about is all these other ways that that the forest Emmett trees nourish themselves and each other and find sustenance and are vital and stay healthy aside.
Science Talk
"robert mcfarlane" Discussed on Science Talk
"Welcome to scientific americans science of summer reading. I'm your host debakey chakravarty. Sometimes on science talk we have conversations with authors about their books but the series is a little different. What i love as a reader is seeing. How books can end up feeling like they're in conversation with each other even when they're not written to do that so this month i'm taking onto science books at a time and just chatting with you about them. I'll be talking through what the authors made me think and feel. Maybe you've read these books yourself. Maybe you even had some of the same feelings or maybe not and if you haven't read them well maybe the science book talk will inspire you to today. We're going to be exploring the abandoned. An underground worlds that for however removed. They may seem from people. Embody are many contradictions prologue. The books the first book is under land. A deep time journey by robert mcfarlane in underlined mcfarland explorers several different types of underworld's throughout europe beginning in britain traveling through the rest of the continent and then heading further north. The journey takes us from cave systems to buried cities to glaciers all revealing different realms underneath our feet and the aspects of geology history mythology and biology that they both berry and reveal the second book is islands of abandonment. Nature rebounding in the post human landscape written by cal. Flynn flynn tracks abandonment through multiple angles beginning with the way wildlife responds to the steaming loss of a human presence. These could be areas impacted by war radiation economics or climate but abandonment is not simply a matter of ecology. It's a thing that is driven and experienced by humans. To and so flynn explores the present human realities of abandonment to understand the implications. This may have for us. And our planet's future chapter one defining places abandoned and under land both have distinct connotations to a reader but they're not necessarily strictly defined terms with scientific definitions at least not in the context of these books. Instead these are words that allow for interpretation allowing us to assess their meanings in the locations that are described by the authors and the underlying connections that arise in these descriptions in underlined the settings are myriad we trek through the catacombs of paris we navigate rough terrain to see cave are in norway. We hike across glaciers. Some of these places are proximal to towns and cities and some are not but they all have some kind of laura attached to them. Whether that's the enthusiastic scientific explanation of the wood wide web underneath our feet or the tale of a cave exploration gone horribly wrong. The stories are as important as the physicality of the settings themselves transcending the space between us and those under lands while also passing on through time and time itself connects these spaces or rather a very disorienting sense of it. The subtitle of the book is a deep time journey. Whether we're traveling through spaces near or far the one thing that seems to unite them is the sense that these are spaces that distort your experience of time early in the book macfarlane rights time moves differently here in the wonderland it thickens. Pools flows russia's slows. And we proceed to read this. Almost tangible distortion of time in various different ways bodies lose their sense of circadian rhythm in time sometimes collapses into milliseconds or at other moments seems to reverse the linkage of space in time is not new to our understanding of physics but it's interesting to see it applied here in a geological and biological context. It's a reminder that space and time have physical definitions for us but they're also experiences. One of the ideas repeated throughout under land is that this other world is a mirror world a world like ours only not and so time becomes one of those strangely mirrored things disorienting the way reflections often are but also informative the way that reflections often are. It's what allows astronomers to study the skies while underneath the ground or a writer to connect to ancient art. After a harrowing journey the settings in islands of abandonment are also quite varied at times. We are in cities exploring the social consequences of abandonment at other times. Where touring an island abandoned by humans. It's domestic cattle left to become feral again but even the notion of abandonment isn't necessarily a strict one after all. There are spaces that people may abandon only to return to like those returning home to a land. Racked by radiation. There's a sort of structural looseness to these spaces which feels similar to the spaces of the sunderland in how they teeter on the edges of familiar worlds accept. The the world's of islands of abandonment are not quite the mirror worlds of under land rather they feel like specific inverse world's compared to spaces that we might not consider abandoned after all. Some of these spaces are quite visible and near like the formations. Flynn rights of called. The five sisters hills made out of waste from oil drilling located about fifteen miles away from edinburgh sites that would appear to be unattractive in abandoned except for the new life. springing from them of those hills. Flynn writes if we want to do best for the environment. What we need is a new way of see a new way of looking at the land. This is a space where the aesthetics are unfamiliar and revealing similar to how the flow of time in the land is unfamiliar and revealing the under land and the abandoned are as a result both expansive in their mysteries and across them both as a sons of isolation but one that unites and brings people together. It's a paradox. But just one of many. That comes up in both books after the break. We'll explore more of the contradictions and paradoxes. That make up the under land or abandoned world.
WNYC 93.9 FM
"robert mcfarlane" Discussed on WNYC 93.9 FM
"This is W N. Y. C. In New York. Support for NPR comes from Angie committed to helping homeowners find and hire local pros for a variety of home projects. Homeowners can see upfront pricing and book appointments through the Angie APP or on angie dot com. Okay. This is all of it on W N Y c. I'm Alison Stewart. Thank you for spending part of your day with us. Whether you're listening on the radio online or on demand. I'm grateful you're here today. Coming up later in the show. We'll have some music for your afternoon first in all of it, Listening party for British folk musician Johnny Flynn. His new album title, Lost in the Cedar Wood was co written with Nature writer Robert McFarlane and inspired in part by Wait for it. The epic of Gilgamesh and later we'll hear new music from mandolinist and, of course, friend of the show. Kristy Lee, known for his work with the band's Nickel Creek, and the Punch Brothers will speak with Chris and listen to tracks from his new album, Les Songs. In which he reflects on his faith, Religion and doubt. A review in Lyric magazine called a passionate, intelligent and deeply engaging. That is all on the way. So let's get this started. Two time NBA champ 11 Time All Star, an Olympic gold medalist Chris Bosh loves to read. He believes in journaling and figuring out your purpose, checking your ego and having a plan for when the ball goes flat..
On Being with Krista Tippett
"robert mcfarlane" Discussed on On Being with Krista Tippett
"And i this is. We've touched on defer. My first love is man mountains and and the first book i ever tried to understand why we why would join up woods often at risk of our lives but early on in on this i began to realize how young that impulses within a a western modern imagination. It's only three hundred years old. It's it's a punk. It's a stripling And yet we see on everest. Two hundred. plus people queuing at eight thousand eight hundred meters to get their summit selfie. And you look back to the seventeenth century. And it's not absolute. But broadly speaking there is no fetish of the summit. There is no summit fever. and wow. I felt that fever inning in me at times and and it still but you go back. Sixty five thousand years in western europe and you find neanderthal artists going into cave spaces hard to reach case basis to make art on the limestone wolves of those caves. Wow i mean that sends shivers down my spine across time. I'm i'm feeling like for somebody who's listening and has read the book. I would love for them to just hear a little bit of like a little bit about one of the places you want. And i i you know and also when i first started reading you and i actually was looking for it again and i couldn't find it. I remember reading on one of your books about how you climb trees. I found that so thrilling to think that that is something that ended adult can still do. But also i feel like you took that same freedom with your body and that same sense of Like curiosity when you squeeze your impossible spaces. I mean i don't know what's a story that you like to tell about. This underlined journey. If you have to choose one mean. I can t. I'd love to tell you a story i could just read you. The first lines of the book Which which saw story which Me but sorts of every underline story just. I've just got here. The way into the underlined is through the ribbon trump of an old ash tree late summer. Heatwave heavier b.'s. Browsing dry over meadow grass gold of standing corn green of fresh. Hey rose black of rooks on stubblefield somewhere. Dan on lower ground at unseen. Fire is burning smoke a column a child drop stones one by one into a metal bucket ting ting ting near the ashes base. Its trunk splits into a rough rift just wide enough that a person might slip into the trees hollow heart and their drop ins the dock. Space that opens below the rifts edge is smooth to shine by those who have gone this way before passing through the oldish to enter the under them krista tippett and this is on being today. With linguist of landscape and underlined author robert mcfarlane There's this counterpart to the reality of of the of the world beneath our feet. The world's beneath our feet Which is also a huge part of the story that drew you to this and that is is part of the story. You tell which is that. It's a frontal frontier of what we're discovering about what is below but we also live in an age. You say of untimely surfacing some of 'em through the scene on burials yes this history or the future. We might say. Overtook this book as i wrote it. That's probably because i moved so slowly It took six or seven years really to finish A but whatever took me was a sense that the underlined was rising to the surface in this restless earth that we have made and A hastening the restlessness over and ourselves now I mean to to give examples of what i mean by. In burials permafrost is no longer palmer. It is melting and slushing and as it does so it's releasing ancient methane deposits. It's really seeing. The buddies of have reindeer killed by anthrax. Spores are alive and in the air again and and setting epidemics. It's releasing fifty thousand year old wolf pups in the in the yukon Perfectly preserved.
On Being with Krista Tippett
"robert mcfarlane" Discussed on On Being with Krista Tippett
"Rock leaning also into the feature. But oh say the hand of help and of collaboration and i find it everywhere. I'm krista tippett and this is on being robert mcfarlane fellow at the university of cambridge. His many books include mountains of the mind and the lost words. We spoke in two thousand and nineteen. Let's just plunge in you know the you the sentence you have For nearly two decades. I have been writing about the relationships of landscape and the human heart and i just find that such an intriguing way for you to describe your focus and that that intersection and i. I wonder you know how would you. How would you trace the earliest deepest roots of this men. And even as i as. I wrote that question. I realized that's kind of an land metaphor the deepest roots of this orientation in your earliest life in the in the background of your life and child that that is a Searching question and and a very good one it. And i think whenever whenever we find a route and follow it back. We'll think we've reached it's end. It will branch off again and surprises. But i guess. If i were to follow the i read back it would. It would take into the mountains that i didn't live in but i did in a sense grow up in. And there's with the mentions of the cango homes in the north east of scotland who my my grandparents lived for many decades. And that's really where. I walked into landscape for the first time. And i have some preston ated memories from those places where everything else from those years. Theirs eddie is is a missed. I can't remember anything from my nottinghamshire childhood. But i can remember picking up a a is. That was as exotic as carl to me side of a highland river so i think that the power of that place Those arctic manson's of britain they They grieved deepen to me. And i also was intrigued to see somewhere. I mentioned that your father that you grew up in coal mining country and that your father was a lung doctor and that that juxtaposition also seemed to me to be at that point between landscape and the human heart. That's well that's a very. I hadn't thought of it like that But you're right He was a way that i began to look inside people as it. Were bring these x-rays home of people's lungs confidentially obviously not not disclosing anything but he would hold them up against the window as light books and we would my brother and i would see into this huge space of the human lung and he would show us the spotting that showed you know black lung on said a hostess and he would just talk about what had happened to. The people who are working woman raised under our feet and that he has person. I knew when i was growing up was a coal mine who was no longer a coal miner and he taught me how to whistle. 'cause he loved being in the sun. So yeah so. I as i said to you before. We began as the official interview. I have been reading you for years. And kind of the sweep of your writing and exploring. And i think you said it this way some in another interview that you're the gradient of your body of work has been tending downwards. She began writing about mountains and mountains of the mind. And then there were the values in moore's in wild places and then there's traversing world on foot in the old ways and now you have gone down to the world's beneath our feet and you said we know so little for the world's beneath our feet. And i think just naming that nonsense that we've been think about how little we know of the world's beneath our feet the day Dog places in in in several senses. That's i sometimes say to my children. We we walk on this thin crust above this raging space of life and matter in all its vibrancy and and fury and we know nothing of it. Site stops at toes. It stops at grand level in sight is so band up with martin ways of knowing we can look and see literally trillions of miles. We can see light coming from starr's across the universe across the galaxy but we looked down and we we can't see beyond the grass or the tomek. Yeah and you went to set an unexpected array of places that then surface beyond which we can't see was really stunning. I don't. I don't know exactly what i expected when i opened the book but You know. I think. I expected the roots of. I didn't expect caves and dark matter. Laboratory below the ground in yorkshire and and this subterranean alternative universe in paris and ariel chambers in finland for high level nuclear waste and then all the way through all your adventures. There's also this existential and echo to the physical act of going downwards and into the dark right and you know you say it and You know that since we before we were homo sapiens. Humans have been seeking out spaces of darkness in which define and make meaning. And and there's something seemingly paradoxical that darkness might be a medium of vision and the descent may be a movement towards revelation. And as you describe all of your adventures also you also even though that is true that there's something strangely life-giving about that descent. But but it you over and over again. Not just thought about experienced. How in counterintuitive. It is to make that move. Yeah you'll often You mind is screaming at you not to enter this space because it perceives it as a place of of confinement and deprivation and indeed for many people that's what the land has been prisoners and forced labourers but it has also been a place of discovery and of revelation..
Heartland Newsfeed Radio Network
"robert mcfarlane" Discussed on Heartland Newsfeed Radio Network
"So to defend their homeland. They built their castles in the valleys. However gwynedd was conquered by edward. The i in the twelve eight long shanks of braveheart fame so beautifully played by patrick megan but he interested in the valleys. He wanted to be able to get to his castles built his cousins. Which are the most expensive set of wonderful counselors you've ever seen. But his cancels are on the edge of the seat so he could access bring building materials by sea. So the kessels that. I'm thinking of in wales for these big dramatic state of the art in the thirteenth century castles. They would be english. Castles built to keep the indigenous welsh. People down yeah and they would be accessible by. Cc what you you don't need to control the countryside just didn't have these holds access by sea. And then you can administer your empire when you've been there you know there's a very narrow coastal strip with mountains on the inside so if you're going to move in north wales you can move either along the coastal strip All through the valleys well if built castles at the mouths of rivers on the seashore. You've got the landscape. Tida bottled up the country king edward. He had his castles there. What are the top three or four castles that they come out and conway damaris. I'd say those harlequins one go just castles. This is travel with rick steves. We've been joined by martin. The land of its the guide from northern rail's. We've been talking about snowden national park in the cultural and historic wonders nearby martin. Thanks so much for joining us. And i'd like to just close with a moment with your unit just spent three just exhilarated. We didn't take the steam train week. Climbed there's a beautiful day. We got to the top of mount snowden you as a welshman tell me what do you see and what do you think accept. The view from the top is stunning. You can see ireland from toughest out you can see. The island. man from atop snowden to see is there the lakes heavily glaciated landscape deep steep narrow valleys streams that run down them and a very green countryside is not by accident that tom jones sang the green green grass of home. It does rain a bit. But you know it's worth putting on a coat to go out into the issue of snowdonia in at that moment. You're in the top of wales literally. Al's martin thanks so much joining us. Thank you for having in just a bit. We'll explore the outdoorsy appeal of the laid back former yugoslav nation of slovenian where there'll be celebrating thirty years of independence later this year but i british travel writer. Dan richards looks at the small outposts. You can find scattered around some of the wildest places on earth it's travel with. Rick steves as a kid. Dan richards climbed trees and built forks in the countryside of western england since then his enthusiasm for adventure has taken him to untamed landscapes around the world some even come with a place to stay and breathtaking view for his book outpost. A journey to the wild ends of the earth. Dan explored the huts cabins and refugees that have sheltered wilderness adventures for decades. He joins us now. Travel with rick steves to take us to these secret worlds. That you won't find on airbnb. Dan welcome hello. Thank you for having me. You mentioned in your book that it all started with a polar bear pelvis. That sat on your father's desk. Can you explain that. Just before i was born. My dot came back from an expedition That he had done to saul bot in the hayek tick when he was younger. He was a mountaineer and also a bit of an explorer and he went to this the most northerly human permanent settlement on earth which is called neon listened as part of a sort of geology expedition. And when he came home he unpacked his bag. And he had this most amazing almost alien artifact which was this whole obama pelvis a very old when he found it. So you know he never sort of the back Involved but he found this kind of bony frame and brought it home and as you say kind of as incredible object in his study. So there's the polar bear pelvis and then a photograph of your dead in small bird. Yes and he'd stayed with his team In a number shuts up that just very very Rudimentary very fragile. Little buildings where they had stayed for a nato team so when your school friends are going to new york for their summer break you decide to go to fall board and find that shed and tell us about how you got into going to these remote outposts because you've gone to these places all over the world will in light of my dad's trip. I began to think about these outposts as witness in a way to amazing adventures and travels that people had had over centuries really and often. The people are gone and the only thing that remains. Is there jumping off. Point and that could be a base like scott space in antarctica or could be a beacon like a lighthouse or fire watching cabin and the paps these places a now out of use but they still exist as these kind of amazing survivors and memorials to that went on. I began thinking about that and also the way that often creative people will try and make shed or a spot in space either in the house or in the garden in a way to try and sort of interact with the muses or just create enough kind of klis space to think and create so. I began to combine them. That is so important. I just loved going to the remote fjords on the west coast of norway and finding the little tiny cabin where edvard grieg. The great norwegian composer would work. And you can see the simple piano he composed on and you can look out the window and see the solitude in the pristine nature and the vast -ness of it all that inspired him and you can imagine that solitude was his muse absolutely. I think a lot of the places that i visited were like that. They had just enough architecture to make some difference so you weren't completely outside and And thorough has that line where his walden pond heart. He was caged amongst birds so the birds were free and that he was with you know at his desk just in the nature so i suppose venturing to these places you would prepare yourself to know what was the purpose of this hutton. And what is the humanity of it. What was the struggle. What was the heroics of this hut and then when you go there. It becomes a little more rewarding and a little more meaningful. Yes absolutely and some of them have had amazing. Double triple quadruple lives. So that were sale house that i visited in iceland and these are buildings are incredibly rudimentary. Stop and they were built by the early norse to make crossing the very barren interior of iceland possible so they were joined the dots kind of stations along the way and they started out being almost little igloos. If you can imagine an inkling that was made of turf and rox And then over the years. They've been rebuilt so many times that now they look like what you might recognize as a sort of prairie farmstead in a way but they still retain the foundations and the story and the myth and ghosts of all of these different incarnations and all of the travelers who've passed through them. I found that really fascinating. And you can hike to one of those. What was it like lobster house of joy in the middle of iceland. It was amazing. Because i think i describe in the book is driving over this featureless because we were renovating it. We actually drove out. But you can imagine the norse walking over this featureless terrain immense seeing this little hook as it would have been in their day appearing and the house of joy you now you can imagine the joy that you know you'll sleeping. You have a roof tonight. You know you're going to be warm because if you missed that if you get lost if you can't find it then you're out on a permafrost did completely baron surveys tundra. So the the need to get in and get warm with immense and very kind of you know essential and elemental and when i approached Atmos which was the sal house that i visited. I describe it as a little. A little house sat up and hugging his knees And when you're out in this kind of an environment and you got your notepad there as a writer all sorts of beautiful thoughts i would think just flutter by and you want to grab them. Write them down absolutely. Although often i end up thinking about this. In retrospect how try and take a few pitches but often when you're in these bases it's so important just to live in the moment and even writing something down you don't want to take your eyes off Was around you directly in front of this. Sale house was the second largest glossier in iceland. And just look at it. It was just so had such charisma. This thing you know it exuded. This cold cold charisma. It was really not it. He would look into these deep deep. Blue's all the blues. You can imagine of this you know elemental incredibly old incredibly important blasio and then to actually take your eyes off it and write something down almost feel like a dereliction of duty. You need to sort of so it all up. Take it all in. This is the quintessence of travel. What you're talking about this travel with rick steves. If you ever wanted to really get away. And i mean really away. The neil enjoy the stories of travel writer. Dan richards his book is outpost attorney to the wild ends of the earth and in this book. He takes his hand adventures to ten remote cabins and refugees and some of the most hostile terrain on the planet. Dan is a royal literary fund fellow at bristol university in england. We have links to dense work with this week. Show rick steves dot com slash radio. So dan you talk about these little hudson. These sheds and whatever we call them and they do have interesting names in scotland. What is it a booth or a buffy a buffy. yes tell us about arriving at a in scotland. Well i think the word bossy comes from There are several derivation. But if you can imagine a booth it's a single room dwelling and again your arriving. After a heart. They slog it scotland so you know it rains and then it really rains and if the sun is shining it's probably still raining you know and you'll be hiking over maybe some orlando. Maybe you've come off the kango and mountains. Andrew just immersed in this amazing plateau of mountains and gorse and heather and moorland a menu see on the horizon again a little buffy this little former crofters hot perhaps a little house little dwelling and you get in and one of the most amazing things about scottish bodies and bodies exist all over the uk. There are some in wales there some in the lake district you get into this very simple dwelling and they're the marks of the people who have been there before you and it really put me mind. There's a wonderful poem by philip. Larkin poem is called. Home is so sad and the lines go. It stays as it was left. Formed to the comfort of the last to go as if to win them back. I've got a cabin rarely visit up in the mountains outside of seattle. And it's like that. I never know who was there last. And sometimes it's been months but you still feel the spirit of the people who were there last and how they left it and what they must have done the fund they must have had and then you get absolutely you get to take that story and carry it forward. That's it and the carrying forward. I think is such an amazing thing of a lot of the places i visited in the book. The bodies and the sale house. They are generous architecture. And as much as they allow on would movement they allow further adventures into as you said earlier pantley completely inhospitable terrain but within them hidden these jewel. Like dwellings at that. Allow you to spend a night. In relative comfort. The scottish have a word rough stuffing they call it. So you know you don't find bothell you don't find a sale house you end up sleeping in a relatively dry ditch with your pack as a pillow and cote is a do a or You know and that's rough stuffing and the alternative to that is amazing. Bossie any day over absolutely. Yeah so you can have fire in great. It is kinda cool to think. They're not the end of the road. They are at depot on the way to somewhere in most cases. Absolutely yeah they're kinda silo. I think you know 'cause some people leave you know. You might get candles you mike matches. You might get some food. That's been left this kind of in a ten you might. You might even get biscuits. I mean that's real luxury out there. Dan richards documents is adventures in outpost. A journey to the wild ends of the earth. He also co wrote holloway with robert mcfarlane which we spoke about on a recent edition of travel. With rick steves then post to twitter at then underscore zip dan. You were talking about a shepherd's hut in switzerland. Can you describe that to us. There was a writing heart that i went to in switzerland. There was a shepherd's hut. That's in the swiss chapter which is a roger deakins kind of shepherd's hut. He was an amazing nature writer from britain. So i'm visiting his farmstead in suffolk in this chapter and really. I just oppose this very very simple. Almost little caravan that he had on wheels that he would move about his estate and he would write and they'll be a little potbellied stove in there and a wonderful quite uncomfortable hosts hannah tryst bed. And you had your own little world in there and i just oppose this with A really space age treehouse. I visited in switzerland. Which is part of jan mcculskey factions writing. I suppose you it. Looks like a fortress. But i think really. It's a kind of Residency program so writers can go and they given everything that they would need to write and one of those things is a solitude but also they're given solitude also from the ground as in their suspended in this amazing brutally honest plywood with all. Maude comes under floor. Heating and things like that is the sort of thing. Silicon valley tech entrepreneur might build in upstate. New york you know. But you're in the jerem mountains of switzerland and it's for writers and it was a really interesting juxtaposition because for one you've got roger deakins very very spot in space and in the other. You've got this super high. Tackle most sifi swiss little cube. That's very blade runner. And at the other extreme you have again this just enough to make you aware that you're not completely outside so i was juxtaposing nose and seeing which might be better for the creative process and everything dan. I'm fascinated in that. Because i can just see the rustic shepherd's hut and then i could see you in this super high tech pod. Did you try writing and thinking and organizing your thoughts in the high tech pod. I did but it's strange. You know the parts of that adventure. I spent six weeks in that port at is exactly the right word you use. It was apart and the nights. I loved best with a stormy nights where you'd get a snowstorm. And you get the gaels coming in and you would see these triple ply windows. But they would walk. You know you'd see them. Woman's breathing with the storm such was the elemental force outside. When you would feel the whole pod begin to move on its horses and it felt for a moment like you're in a ship in the middle of a stormy sea and those elements are like best where nature almost tried to get back on an even keel. 'cause you can be in this kind of almost hermetically sealed box away from everything. You can't hear the birds where everything is automated. You know everything is digital but nature will always find a way and the parts that i love most with a stormy elements and also. There was an amazing weekend. Where the pod developed several leaks and say you could hear dripping of water and the susie alec trysofi and there's something in me that likes the chaos of that so the pits. I really enjoyed so book. Takes us all over the world. Tell.