Simon Thakur is the creator of Ancestral Movement — an approach to embodied practice aimed at radically transforming and expanding the sense of self, by exploring and rediscovering patterns of movement and awareness that are part of our species’ history, both recent and ancient. 

In this episode, we explore how to open up the realm of infinite expression with our bodies through a basic understanding of mirror neurons, body-mapping, comparative anatomy and animal mimicry. While that might sound complex, Simon explains that "As we explore, we find that the body is full of layer upon layer of extraordinary, ancient, ancestral power – four billion years of adaptation and embodied knowledge – and we start to anchor this understanding of shared ancestry and vast evolutionary timescales in the actual feeling of the body itself."

Simon encourages us to become aware of the structural and behavioral similarities we share with other living creatures through developing our sense of empathy and body awareness. We also discuss the current status of the Australian indigenous lifeway and how to learn to understand the language of nature. Tune into this fascinating conversation with Simon Thakur to learn more about the possibilities of your own human animal.

"Two billion people in 80% of the world’s countries consume insects as part of their daily diet, and entomophagy has been practiced by those cultures for thousands of years.”

In today’s bonus ReWild Yourself Podcast episode, I talk with the creators of the new documentary film The Gateway Bug, Johanna B. Kelly and Cameron Marshad. Johanna and Cameron are passionate about entomophagy and its potential to massively improve the sustainability of our current broken food industry. During the making of The Gateway Bug, they learned the ins and outs of the booming American edible insect industry, and they give us an inside look into the current landscape and what we can expect in the future. I hope this interview leaves you inspired to begin including edible insects in your diet!

During the winter season, we tend to spend more time indoors. This winter I’ve been spending my indoor-time honing some ReWilding skills — such as my hand drill practice (friction fire), tending to my fishing lines (for ice-fishing), and processing foods from the fall harvest. My partner Avani and I like to watch a movie, documentary, or episodic show while we carry out the rhythmic processing of our acorns into flour. While there’s some obvious irony in the idea of using modern media to “inspire” ReWilding, video has all but replaced the stories told by our elders around the fire each night. I am always on the hunt for fresh, inspirational media and thought I’d share a few of my favorites — some new, some old — with you! 

My friend Nora Gedgaudas — author, nutritionist and repeat ReWild Yourself Podcast guest — joins me to discuss the essential nutrient that our bodies literally evolved to eat: Fat. In her latest book Primal Fat Burner (coming soon to a bookstore near you!), Nora refutes the popular mainstream belief that saturated fat is the culprit of disease and shares how dietary fat is actually crucial to vibrant physical and mental health.

We cover a lot of ground in this episode as Nora guides us through the ancestral diet we are built for, the nutrients we need to acquire from animal-sourced foods and cultivating a foundational metabolism. We also get into some fascinating side tangents — from ethical issues in the world of natural foods to corporate funding of veganism to alcohol to feminism. Enjoy!

Season 2 of ReWild Yourself Podcast is coming to a close, and I’m so grateful to each and every one of you for your support this year! This episode is debuting on the Winter Solstice, a time of the year when many of us are reflecting on the past year and setting goals for the upcoming journey around the sun. In 2017, I’d like to encourage you to renew your ReWilding vow and become a master of the elements. I take you through each element — Earth (food), Water, Air, Fire — sharing my personal resolutions, as well as my suggestions for how you can resolve to upgrade your life and strengthen your relationship with each element. 

In each episode of ReWild Yourself Podcast this season, I’ve been asking each guest the same question: What is your prognosis for the future of the human species? I recap on the answers we’ve heard this past year and share my current thoughts on the topic.

Now I’d love to hear from you! What are your resolutions for the New Year? How will you ReWild Yourself?

Summer Bock believes that good health starts in the gut, and she is dedicated to helping people heal their digestive issues naturally. You have about three pounds worth of microbiota lining your gut that is active, diverse and affects way more than just your digestion. In this interview, Summer is here to share how you can for keep your gut strong, healthy and motile. We discuss her top strategies for repopulating gut flora, how stress affects your gut health and what you can do about it, how to remineralize your body and we even get into the growing trend of fecal transplants.

This interview is a great reminder that we need to eat from all Four Kingdoms: Animal, Plant, Fungal and Bacterial. I hope it inspires you to infuse your diet with more fermented foods and cultivate a healthy, robust gut flora.

Arthur Haines — botanist, taxonomist, primitive skills practitioner and a regular guest on ReWild Yourself podcast — is back on the show, and we have some VERY exciting news to share with you. For the past year, Arthur has been pouring his heart into writing a book that is a foundational education in human ecology and the ReWilding lifestyle. From the diet of Homo sapiens to a look at civilizations past to expanding comfort zones through hormesis, Arthur takes us through the book chapter by chapter, hitting the highlights of each topic as we go. At the heart of the book, and Arthur’s message, is something many of us feel — the missing lynchpin: a need for sustainable and rejuvenate ReWilding community.

In the past few shows, I’ve been hinting at an online program Arthur and I have put together for the upcoming winter season. This program will be a great way to stay connected with Arthur and I — and the ReWilding community — throughout the winter months. We’ll dive into study together and support one another in keeping ReWilding motivation high. In this episode, we share all the details on how you can get involved. I hope you’ll join us this winter!

Nadine Artemis is a trailblazer in the new paradigm of women’s self care, and in this interview, she lays out her favorite practices to nurture the female body. Nadine is the founder of Living Libations — an exquisite line of lotions, potions, scents, creams and essential oils that I use personally — and a regular guest on ReWild Yourself podcast.

In our past two interviews, Nadine has detailed her Stop, Seal and Seed method for dental care and skin care, and in this episode, she shares how women can apply this method to vaginal care. We learn what conventional female body care products and practices to avoid and Nadine’s favorite natural alternatives. We also discuss breast health and care, and Nadine reveals some fascinating information on breast cancer that is important for every woman to explore. Nadine’s nourishing self care practices are simple, low maintenance and accessible to all. Ladies (and the men who love them), I hope you enjoy this interview!

As an avid barefooter, I’ve tried countless barefooting shoes over the years, but none compare to Vibram FiveFingers. I’ve been a fan of FiveFingers for some time — they have allowed me to develop a foot dexterity, nimbleness and strength that I didn’t know was possible! It was so exciting to get a chance to talk to Vibram’s Director of Sales and Distribution, Chris Melton.

Chris shares the story of Vibram's early beginnings, how FiveFingers came to be, the evolution of some of their most loved models and what we can look forward to from them in the future. Most importantly, he answers every Vibram fan’s burning question: Is it pronounced Vee-bram or Vy-brum?? Whether you’re a loyal Vibram FiveFingers aficionado or a fan of barefooting in general, this show is for you!

Our brains produce new brain cells throughout our entire lives through a process called neurogenesis, and in this podcast, Dr. Brant Cortright is going to share what this means for our brain health and how we can enhance the way our brains operate. Dr. Cortright is a clinical psychologist and Professor of Psychology at California Institute of Integral Studies, specializing in cutting-edge brain health and neuroscience-informed depth therapy.

When we increase the rate of neurogenesis, we see things like improved cognitive function, better memory, less stress, more energy and increased immune health. When we decrease the rate of neurogenesis, however, we see the opposite: poor cognition and memory, increased stress and anxiety and decreased immune health. In this interview, Dr. Cortright discusses the diet and lifestyle components — which mirror the ReWilding diet and lifestyle — that are crucial for your neural development. He shares some interesting information on sleep, and we also get into the effects of substances like caffeine, cannabis and mushrooms on brain health. Tune in for a fascinating discussion — rich with actionable information — that can help improve the functioning of your human animal!

How much of your movement are you outsourcing? Biomechanist and best-selling author Katy Bowman is back on ReWild Yourself podcast to share how we can transition to a more movement-rich lifestyle by outsourcing less of our daily needs and operations.

Katy is passionate about Nutritious Movement, "a whole-body movement program that utilizes Movement Micronutrients, Movement Macronutrients, and habitat (lifestyle) changes to nourish all trillion of your body’s parts.” In this interview, we cover some of the valuable material in Katy’s new book Movement Matters where she dissects our cultural sedentism and the issues with our convenience-fueled society. We discuss simple ways to enter the world of foraging, how to stack your life to make the most of your time and energy, the luxury of exercise, movement ecology and more.

What is the mind? How does the mind differ from the brain? These are some of the questions Dr. Daniel Siegel explores in his second appearance on the ReWild Yourself podcast. Dr. Siegel is a noted neuropsychiatrist and New York Times best-selling author, and he has just released a new book that delves into consciousness, subjective experience and the self-organizational properties of the mind. In this episode, we go deeper into some of the topics we covered in our first conversation. We discuss how Dr. Siegel navigates the worlds of science and spirituality in his work, how brain activity differs from the mind, our perception of time and his hopes for his work in mindsight and personal transformation

Over the past year, I have fully immersed myself in the hunting side of the modern hunter gatherer lifestyle. From trout and deep sea fishing to hunting wild turkey, black bear and coyote, my experiences harvesting wild animals to put meat on my table have been profound and life-changing, and I’d like to share my story with you. As a conscientious omnivore, I’m always striving to develop a closer relationship with the food I consume. Through hunting and gathering bio-regionally, I’m able to participate with my local ecology and develop an intimate relationship with the place I call home. In this solo episode, I detail the reasons why I hunt and share a bit about how I got started and how you can too.

Deep gratitude to my mentors, to the wild creatures who have become part of my body and to you for your support of my journey to deepen my connection to my local ecology and ancestral heritage.

Are you eating what you think you are? As a modern hunter gatherer, I am quite conscious and meticulous about the foods I consume. I base my diet on a Four Kingdoms approach (eating from the animal, plant, fungal and bacterial kingdoms), and I strive to source the majority of my food bio-regionally. I still shop at Whole Foods and occasionally dine at farm to table-style restaurants, of course, and I was shocked to learn of the rampant food fraud that extends to seemingly reputable grocers and eateries.

Award-winning food journalist and travel writer Larry Olmsted wrote a comprehensive exposé on fraud in the unregulated food industry, and he is here to reveal some of the industry’s most adulterated foods. He teaches us how we can be more vigilant consumers as we navigate grocery store aisles, food labels and restaurant menus.

Julie Angel is a filmmaker, author and photographer who documents the current ‘age of athletisiscm’ with a focus on Parkour, MovNat, buildering and much more. What’s buildering, you might be asking? I thought it was a typo at first, too, but Julie explains this small, but passionate, subculture as we get into the fascinating world of urban movement mavericks. 

In this interview, Julie takes us back to the early beginnings of Parkour. In researching her Parkour-themed PhD thesis, she spent time on the streets getting to know the Yamakasi — the original group of Parkour practitioners — and got an up-close and personal look into the lives of these interesting characters who shaped the modern Parkour movement. To me, Parkour represents human wildness  breaking free in domesticated landscapes — the human animal in movement across urban habitat. City dwellers, take note, this can be a unique way for you to utilize your environment for your natural movement practice! At the heart of Parkour, is a message of looking past the limitations of our environment, our innate, primal drive for sovereignty and embracing our intrinsic wildness.

What a treat it was to talk with primatologist and biological anthropologist Craig Stanford. If you’re a regular listener of ReWild Yourself podcast, you probably know how deeply fascinated I am with the great apes. I think they give us a window into understanding ourselves biologically, into understanding our wildness and even help us to glimpse into our origins.

Craig — author of sixteen books and over one hundred scholarly and popular articles — has studied chimpanzees extensively, studying their hunting behavior in Tanzania in collaboration with Dr. Jane Goodall, studying chimps and mountain gorillas in Uganda and more. He takes us on a journey to the meeting place of primatology and anthropology. He breaks down the social behaviors of some of the great apes, focusing on chimps and bonobos, and shares some of his controversial findings on the popularized "peaceful bonobo" research. This interview provides context to many of the themes we discuss on this podcast and was my favorite of the season. If you’re interested in ReWilding, I think you’ll find our conversation fascinating.

Leila Darwish, community organizer and grassroots bioremediation expert, joins me on the podcast to give us an inside look into the promising possibilities of bioremediation to heal our earth’s most damaged landscapes. Bioremediation is the use of biological agents to remove or neutralize contaminants; allying with living systems to detoxify contaminated environments.

Leila has worked as a community organizer in Canada and the US on campaigns such as tar sands, fracking, nuclear energy, coal, climate justice, water protection, and more. Her energy and optimism in the face of these devastating environmental issues is inspiring. In this interview, Leila shares an overview of bioremediation and how it’s successfully being used to recover many toxic landscapes in North America, how she remains positive, governmental outlook on bioremediation and much more. Perhaps most importantly, she shares how we can get involved with bioremediation on an individual level; she certainly left me inspired to do so!

"The greatest damage done by neglect, trauma or emotional loss is not the immediate pain they inflict but the long-term distortions they induce in the way a developing child will continue to interpret the world and her situation in it. All too often these ill-conditioned implicit beliefs become self-fulfilling prophecies in our lives. We create meanings from our unconscious interpretation of early events, and then we forge our present experiences from the meaning we’ve created. Unwittingly, we write the story of our future from narratives based on the past."
― Dr. Gabor Maté, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction

Renowned speaker and bestselling author Dr. Gabor Maté joins me for a powerful conversation on addiction and takes us into the heart of where trauma originates. With years of both scientific research and direct interaction with patients challenged by hard-core drug addiction and mental illness in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, Dr. Maté offers a unique and authentic perspective on the topics of addiction, mind-body wellness and ADD.

In this interview, Dr. Maté illuminates how our modern society perpetuates trauma by fostering a culture of disconnection and dissociation. From childhood trauma to trauma passed down to us from the generations that went before us, many of us carry unresolved trauma that often materializes in addiction. Addictive behavior goes beyond hard drug and alcohol addictions; our society is wrought with addictions to things like caffeine, less-than-optimal foods and dissociative behaviors, such as watching TV.

So how can we heal and become the most authentic version of ourselves? Dr. Maté sheds light on some of the traditional healing modalities he has found to be successful through years of wide-ranging experiences. With lots of golden nuggets on topics like death awareness, spiritual-bypassing and authenticity strewn throughout, there is something for everyone in this insightful conversation.

Stefano Tripney is a contextual movement coach and MovNat certified trainer who creatively bridges the inner workings of the mind and body with our collective external landscapes in order to explore, learn, experience, and play with the world and our place in it. Earlier this summer, Stefano and I spent a week together hiking through the forests of Maine, gathering wild foods, fishing and foraging wild water.

In between harvesting wild pine pollen and trout fishing, we sat down at the ReWilding headquarters to discuss Stefano's philosophies on being a more capable human. During this fun and wide-ranging conversation, we get into the correlation between movement and cognitive ability, how to stay motivated to train, moving through dynamic and texture-rich environments, unstructured play, forest bathing and much, much more.

"Don't confuse me with being anything else other than proud. Proud to be a hunter. It's time we stop apologizing for how we get our protein. This is who we are. Unless you’re a small time rancher, small time farmer, a hunter or fishermen... you really have no idea where your food comes from. Most people don’t even think about it. Well, we think about it. ” —Donnie Vincent

Donnie Vincent — explorer, biologist, conservationist, and sportsman — explores some of the world’s most remote lands, sharing stories of his expeditions through a variety of films that inspire conservation and a love and respect for wild places. Donnie is here to share some insights on hunting that, for many of you, may be surprising. He sets the record straight on the stereotype of the “typical” hunter, and sheds light on the passion for ecology and conservation that most hunters possess. We also get into some helpful tips for getting started in hunting and the practicality of procuring meat for yourself and family through this avenue. No matter what your views on hunting, I think you’ll enjoy and resonate with Donnie’s message.