At Autumn Equinox I attended the final workshop of a year long process called Seasonal Alchemy. The weekend included nature connection, meditation, ritual, breathwork, dance and teaching about the Wheel of the Year. I was already familiar with most of these aspects but I was struck by how they were woven together. I was also reminded of the richness of the Wheel of the Year. I’ve been working with the seasonal Wheel for many years but had forgotten its depth and power: I’ve found it hard to hold onto my practice without the support of community.

Seasonal Alchemy brings together several of the embodied pathways of connection and I’m delighted to bring you this interview with the team who create it: Lydia Campbell, Hamish Mackay-Lewis anf Jed Hamilton-Shaw.


Hamish Mackay-Lewis is a nature guide, leadership coach and facilitator, eternally committed to the wisdom and gift of the moment-to-moment experience. He has a varied and international background having served in the armed forces before going into the field of human development.
A perennial student of personal transformation, for the past 12 years he has guided groups and individuals to bring a spirit of adventure into their lives, to look inwardly and honestly and to experience the mutually restorative relationship between land and people.
At the heart of his work are the practices of presence, nature connection and breathwork.
www.hamishmackaylewis.com

Lydia Campbell is a teacher, mediator, leadership consultant, coach and mother. She has been immersed in the fertile edge of transformational leadership and healing for the past 20 years in her own life firstly, and externally in delivering retreats across Africa, India and Europe for thousands of attendees.
Her work rests on three main pillars: ancient wisdom and shamanic healing arts, facilitation and modern leadership approaches, and a healthy dose of heartful, no-bs, real life grit.
www.lydia.ie

Jed Hamilton-Shaw is a Ritualist, Facilitator, Coach and DJ. He began his nature connection journey in 2021, when the pandemic highlighted a profound need for entering into a deeper relationship with the wild world.
He has trained for a number of years with WildWise, a Devon based hub for outdoor education and has worked on the Woods for Wellness project at Dartington Hall as a nature connection facilitator and with Journeyman, a UK charity, mentoring school age boys to help them transition to a generative masculinity.

He is also a magical practitioner, DJ and space holder: working in these ways as part of a wider transition to cultural rewilding of this land.
You can find him on the paths and ancient byways across his beloved Somerset and beyond.

More information about Seasonal Alchemy:
https://www.seasonalalchemy.space

Thirty years ago I gave a presentation that would change my life. I was a Pagan environmental activist and had been invited to deliver a talk at an academic conference at Newcastle University. The event, ‘Paganism in Contemporary Britain’, was the first international academic conference on the subject of Pagan studies and they wanted a Pagan perspective on the environmental crisis. My presentation was called ‘Sacred Ecology’, and it led to me doing a PhD. ‘Sacred Ecology’ was subsequently published and has been more widely read than anything I’ve written since.

'Sacred Ecology' considers the environmental crisis and asks; how can we achieve real change? I consider philosophical options, including Social Ecology and Deep Ecology. I reject both, and present instead my vision for a somatic philosophy that embraces our embodied knowing. I propose ecstatic Pagan ritual as a fundamental pathway to embodied knowing. Such rituals enables us to reconnect with ourselves, healing the rift between body & mind and gifting us a deep knowing of the sacredness of the Earth.

Passionate and radical, this presentation is perhaps more important now than it was thirty year ago.

In this episode, I’m privileged to speak with three Indigenous spiritual leaders. In the first interview I talk to two members of the Willkasara Medicine Family, who have been leading Plant Medicine Ceremonies and Retreats for 50 years. Wachan Bajiyoperak is from a lineage of Peruvian Medicine People. His partner Martika Gomez is a descendent of the Kogi people. They live with their daughter, Shiqwarkenty, in the Sacred Valley of the Inca in Peru. They work with powerful plants including Grandfather Wachuma, the spirit medicine from the San Pedro cactus.

My second interview is with Shaneihu, a member of the Yawanawá tribe, and chief of his village in Brazil. Shaneihu has received teachings from different Yawanawa spiritual leaders is steeped in their traditional knowledge.

He spends most of his time at Yawarani village, where he receives small groups for spiritual learning and healing. I was fortunate enough to interview him live during a rare visit to the UK.

I've edited out the translation of my questions, but Shaneihu's replies are unedited. Indigenous voices are often silenced and I want you to hear what he says in his own language. The translation was provide by the anthropologist and writer Maria Fernanda Gebara.

These two ancient traditions are geographically far apart, but have much in common. Sacred Medicine plants are important in both cultures as is an intimacy with the natural world. Wachan and Shaneihu urge us to wake up from the illusion of disconnection that plagues us. Martika, Wachan and Shaneihu all send us an urgent message: We must find connection and right relationship with each other and the natural world.

The Willkasara Medicine Family:
https://www.willkasara.org

Learn about the Yawanawá People:
https://ikixara.com/

Maria Fernanda Gebara
https://fegebara.com/