Welcome to the Blogcast for episode 03 of the Balance Garden podcast - ‘Coming Home’. Here you can find the photos, links and sources of the people, ideas and inspirations involved in this month’s show - Nina Constable & Joe Driscoll.

In episode 3, I’m pondering over the phenomenon of migration, given that this is the time when some of our feathered friends gradually arrive or depart and many other species move homes across land, air and sea.

The Greek root of the word ‘migrate’ is ‘to change’, and with so much change afoot, it seemed like the thing to think about.

Thanks to Jasmine, founder of Balance Garden and my co-producer for the recommendation to listen to a Radiolab podcast about migration, There & Back Again, when I mentioned the theme of this podcast. It’s worth a listen if you want to hear more about how the mysteries of migration have been discovered throughout history, and are still being discovered.

In part 2, we turn our attention to one of nature’s most busy and industrious citizens - the beaver! Coined ‘ecosystem engineers’, beavers have been proposed as one way of implementing the EU Water Framework Directive, by just doing what they do. Once native to Britain, beavers were hunted to extinction by the early 20th century, poached for their fur and the salicylic acid found in their glands - used as a cure-all in medieval medicine.

Beavers weren’t resident in the UK for 400 years, until they were reintroduced in Scotland in 2009. Busy capturing their return to Cornwall since 2017 is award-winning film-maker and my very old friend, Nina Constable. I caught up with her on her amazing journey so far and incredible work with WWF, BBC Spring & Autumn Watch, Cornwall Wildlife Trust & the brand new Beaver Trust, for which she recently made this film, 'Beavers without Borders’.

Part 3 brings us Hecate Trivia, Goddess of the crossroads, who’s celebrated in the Pagan calendar on November 30th. Daughter of the Titan Perses and the nymph Asteria, Hecate presides over heaven, earth, and sea, representing the blessings of daily life. Depicted with three bodies standing back-to-back, looking in all directions, Hecate is known as a triple goddess who celebrates all phases of life, such as birth-life-death and past-present-future, to name a few.

Then we head to a country very much at a crossroads: America, where Thanksgiving is celebrated on November 26th. To tell us about this tradition, I called on another old friend - Joe Driscoll. When we met, he was touring the UK festival circuit with Chai Wallahs, making us all dance when he lit up the stage and keeping us singing all night around the fire. He eventually returned to Syracuse, New York, and now serves his community as 5th District Councillor. Listen to his song ‘The Water’ about Onondaga Lake, the subject of his Thanksgiving story.

You can follow Joe on Twitter or Facebook

I thought this episode was going to be about migration in the sense of moving away. I originally called it ‘crossing borders’, until I realised, through making the podcast, that migration is more about coming home.

Whether to a new home, being tried and tested, or one that has always been there, even if you didn’t know it. Read about my recent homecoming in my blog, Falling in Love During Lockdown.

And as the leaves turn their final shade of yellow, reaching the other side of the life cycle that started with the Spring lockdown, I’m reminded that we are always changing, growing with time, migrating with the seasons, through the different sides of ourselves. And though, like trees, it looks like we’re staying still, there is always movement.

Podcast soundtrack

‘Yes Mic’ from the Manasseh Meets Praise LP, out on Roots Garden Records / video produced by Tiger Lily Productions and Badj Whipple

Credits

• Producers: Tiger Lily Raphael & Jasmine Pradhan

• Editor: Tiger Lily Raphael

• Special guests: Nina Constable, Joe Driscoll