Shows
Uncivil Savant PodcastEpisode 86 - What Cannot Be Dissolved is the RealThis week’s podcast is an expansion on a voice letter I sent to Dougald Hine this week, which is part of our years-long ongoing conversation about how people can show up for one another in the strange times in which we find ourselves. My tone might sound different compared to other pieces but I have decided to leave it unsweetened. Forgive my rant, or perhaps just rant along.Leaving aside the slew of land-expropriation news from elsewhere, in my country right now, rich landowners are seeking to turf-off everyone from even being able to walk freely on...2025-02-2319 min
Homeward Bound (including The Great Humbling)Taking Beauty Seriously with Caroline RossAs the fifth season of The Great Humbling came to an end, we recognised that what we’ve been doing is letting you listen in on a conversation that we would want to have anyway – and this inspired us to expand the podcast, to bring you overheard conversations with other friends, co-conspirators and people who get us thinking.We’re calling this Homeward Bound, a title that started off as the name of the first online series that Dougald Hine taught with a school called HOME in 2020. For a few series now, we’ve used homewardbound.org as the h...2024-05-2146 min
Uncivil Savant PodcastEpisode 60 - A Meadow YearTalking with friends is like spring water to me, which also means I sometimes neglect it in favour of another cup of strong tea when I should return to the source… Some years, it can seem like our energy is scattered and broadcast in all directions. It can feel like all the work we are doing, the research, the admin, the writing, the organising, doesn’t seem to add up to anything, let alone something grand. Talking with Dougald Hine last month, the image of a meadow came to mind, and set my heart at rest. Perhaps you...2024-02-1209 min
Uncivil Savant PodcastEpisode 14 - In Conversation with Iain McGilchristI was finally able to download and edit this recording made by Dougald Hineof Iain McGilchrist and me talking at his home last week. I first wrote to Iain in December 2010 to thank him for his book ‘The Master and His Emissary’ and to relay its profound effect upon my life, understanding of T’ai Chi and the Tao, and its beneficial outward rippling effect in my and my teacher’s T’ai Chi schools.First published here with notes and more images, February 15th 2023. Get full access to Uncivil Savant at carolineross.substack.com/subscr2024-01-3050 min
Uncivil Savant PodcastEpisode 09 - Talking About the WeatherSeemingly endless rain is lashing down on old England as my friends in New England write describing snowdrifts many feet deep in their ‘once in a hundred years’ storm. I am away in London for New Year, spending the evening peacefully alone by choice, reading, meditating and bringing you this piece.A year ago I wrote to my friend Dougald, having just found words for a rebellion in me against the disdain I sensed in descriptions of ordinary people, (especially ordinary women), in much contemporary political writing, with which I might otherwise have sympathy. It still stands. Disd...2024-01-2909 min
Uncivil Savant PodcastEpisode 06 - The Now-Time of the HandThis piece is a response to a recent essay by Rhyd Wildermuth and an opportunity to expand on a letter to my friend Dougald Hine . I’ll raise the case for haptic richness over the tyranny of frictionless surfaces, show how our ancestors left us plenty of medicine in unlikely places, and suggest that there is no time, or at least no linear time, in the palm of your hand. For help from Blake, my mother’s sewing kit and a German biker, plus several contrasting photos featuring my hands, press play.First published here with full tran...2024-01-2820 min
Homeward Bound (including The Great Humbling)The Great Humbling S5E2: 'Words in Wartime'We recorded this episode on Dougald’s birthday – and Ed starts with the image of him wearing Anna’s family’s Coyote coat, triggering unsettling flashbacks to the QAnon shaman, who is apparently now running for Congress. Welcome to the dark weirdness of 2023. Ed quotes from Paul Mason’s ‘Gaza: Time for Restraint’, a story brought to our attention by listener Richard Brophy, about a conversation between George Orwell and Stephen Spender during the Second World War. Before we head further into the core themes of this episode, Ed talks about a recent visit to the Time & Tide...2023-11-1759 min
Homeward Bound (including The Great Humbling)The Great Humbling S5E1: 'The Ruined Church'Welcome back to Season 5 of The Great Humbling! Here are some show notes... The Regrowing a Living Culture series at a school called HOME starts on 7 & 8 November. Ed has been reading Dougie Strang’s book, The Bone Cave. Dougald mentions the cluster of authors who were part of the first decade of Dark Mountain who are stepping out with books of their own, finding their voice and getting the attention they deserve. This includes Dougie, also his wife Em Strang’s first novel Quinn, Nick Hunt’s first novel Red Smoking Mirror, Caroline Ross’s...2023-11-0154 min
Homeward Bound (including The Great Humbling)The Great Humbling S3E3: 'Be like water!' Dougald talks about Campfire Convention https://campfireconvention.uk/ Ed introduces this week’s ‘New Move’ instruction: Be Like Water Dougald tells a story about meeting Cindy Crabb on a North Sea ferry and receiving her zine, later compiled as the Encyclopedia of Doris, a review at Zine Nation says ‘it’s not an overstatement to say that it’s one of the most important and influential fanzines ever written’ and his own zine ‘Learning How to Drown’ Ed talks about...2021-04-1444 min