Artist, designer, storyteller and independent researcher Alyen Foning resides in her ancestral home, the Lepcha community at the foothills of the Eastern Himalayas, with its sacred mountains and rivers.. Creating with fabrics, colours, music and design, Alyen’s work serves as a bridge between both the fields of art and research, and ancestral pasts and future generations.

In this We As Nature episode, Alyen shares her journey from growing up in the city, disconnected from her Lepcha roots, to the psychotic breakdown she experienced in 2014 that changed her life forever. From this place of darkness arrived guidance from an unlikely source, and an invitation back to her lineage, community and shamanic traditions.

In Alyen’s We As Nature story, she shares:

• How art has been a source of remembering her interconnection with the natural world since childhood.
• The breakdown she experienced whilst living in Goa that led her to discover her role as a shaman in her ancestral community.
• How her experiences as a Shaman have impacted her lifestyle, her art and her relationships.
• Guidance and a prayer, which came through after sharing her personal story.

After Alyen’s story, in a twist to our usual format, we share some of the questions and answers from the live event.

Links:

• Remembering our sacred Himalayan river Teesta and the Water Dragon— You Tube and Story with Artwork.
• The Story of the Muun, Female Shamans of the Lepcha tribe: A Video story session hosted by White Otter Academy.
• Alyen’s Instagram and Facebook profiles

Credits
Creative Producer & Host: Nathalie Joel-Smith on behalf of Flourishing Diversity
Music Composer and Sound Producer: Dom Martin
Live Event Production: Katy Molloy &  Laura Tyley
Illustrations: Rohama Malik

About Flourishing Diversity
We As Nature was recorded during an online gathering hosted by Flourishing Diversity.

Flourishing Diversity nurtures the human capacity to respect and uphold vibrant cultures and flourishing ecosystems. The events we produce, the narratives we amplify and the relationships we nurture seek to strengthen existing and emerging restorative cultures by supporting people to protect and deeply connect with the land on which they dwell and the multi-species communities they share these spaces with.

You can register to receive updates and inspiration from us here and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Linked In.

Bodyworker, cultural worker and author of “Liberated to the Bone”, Susan Raffo, shares her personal story of discovering the intrinsic connection between individual healing and our collective power to shape the systems we live in.

In this episode, Susan highlights the impact of the histories held in our bodies, and with passionate and hopeful energy, offers the possibility of leaning into our aliveness as an act of social and ecological repair.

In Susan’s We As Nature story, she shares:

• The impact of being raised in a political family and her childhood awareness of the energetic relations between people.
• How her direct experience of political activism at the UK Greenham Common occupation site has shaped her.
• How the hidden histories held in our bodies create fractures in our relationships and collective power. 
• The potent effect cranial sacral therapy had on her baby daughter and how this led her to become a bodyworker.
• How she came to recognise individual healing and collective organising as fundamentally the same body of work, and how her vocation has evolved to embrace and champion this.

Find out more about Susan’s work at The Healing Histories Project, REP, and on her website, where you’ll also find details of her books, ‘Liberated to the Bone’, ‘Queerly Classed’ and ‘Restricted Access’.

Credits
Creative Producer & Host: Nathalie Joel-Smith on behalf of Flourishing Diversity
Music Composer and Sound Producer: Dom Martin
Live Event Production: Katy Molloy,  Laura Tyley & Andrea Langlois
Illustrations: Rohama Malik

About Flourishing Diversity
We As Nature was recorded during an online gathering hosted by Flourishing Diversity.

Flourishing Diversity nurtures the human capacity to respect and uphold vibrant cultures and flourishing ecosystems. The events we produce, the narratives we amplify and the relationships we nurture seek to strengthen existing and emerging restorative cultures by supporting people to protect and deeply connect with the land on which they dwell and the multi-species communities they share these spaces with.

You can register to receive updates and inspiration from us here and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Linked In.

Movement artist, director & theatre-maker Gabrielle Moleta invites listeners into a creative process that dissolves the perceived boundaries between humans and the natural world. 

In this episode, Gabrielle shares her journey into Transformation and Imaginative Improvisation, and how this unique creative process helped her recognise the depths of her interconnectivity with the living world. Now the Founder of the Company Gabrielle Moleta, her work trains artists to fully absorb the essence of an animal and, through theatre, share the stories that emerge.

In Gabrielle’s We As Nature story, she shares:

• Her unexpected journey from being a dance-obsessed child, uninterested in animals, to discovering her life’s work as a theatre-maker who spends years observing a single animal. 
• The actor training that led her to Catherine Clouzot and the Transformation and Imaginative Improvisation approach and how this lineage was passed down to her.
• A window into the process of observing and absorbing the essence of animals and how this unlocks theatre characters and stories.
• How this work has changed the way she perceives and senses the world around her.
• The qualities that emerge in both actor and audience from coming into contact with this approach

Find out more about Gabrielle’s work at Company Gabrielle Moleta and watch the Hawk Documentary here. Connect with Gabrielle on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Credits
Creative Producer & Host: Nathalie Joel-Smith on behalf of Flourishing Diversity
Music Composer and Sound Producer: Dom Martin
Live Event Production: Katy Molloy,  Laura Tyley & Andrea Langlois
Illustrations: Rohama Malik

About Flourishing Diversity
We As Nature was recorded during an online gathering hosted by Flourishing Diversity.

Flourishing Diversity nurtures the human capacity to respect and uphold vibrant cultures and flourishing ecosystems. The events we produce, the narratives we amplify and the relationships we nurture seek to strengthen existing and emerging restorative cultures by supporting people to protect and deeply connect with the land on which they dwell and the multi-species communities they share these spaces with.

You can register to receive updates and inspiration from us here and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Linked In.