Dr Embers Presents - By the hearth 04

Tonight, By the Hearth takes a different form.

Rather than a tale told by the fire, I'm joined by a fellow poet, storyteller, and co-creator Joanna Vale for an intimate conversation exploring the inspiration behind her latest season — a collection of stories and poems shaped by the lessons of nature.

Together, we discuss the ideas hidden beneath each piece: what rivers remember, what owls witness, and what the natural world can teach us about ourselves if we are willing to truly look. 

From shifting perspectives to the quiet wisdom found in the wild places of the world, this episode offers a rare glimpse behind the curtain into the creative process itself.

So draw closer to the hearth… and join us for an evening of reflection, inspiration, and conversation beside the fire. 🔥

If you would like to support the vital work with Nightingales please use the link below:

https://www.singingwithnightingales.co.uk

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 a thought, a reflection, or even a story of your own.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Welcome to By the Heart. I and Dr. Embers. Joining me tonight is the creator of our last season. My partner in this podcast. And a great poet in our own right. So I'd like to welcome to the fire Joanna Vale. Welcome, Joanna.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

So let's talk about your season. Um, first of all, can I ask what was your inspiration uh to create an entire season around nature and what lessons we can take from the natural world?

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Nature is always the inspiration. And especially for me, it's usually my starting point when doing anything creative, but especially with writing my own poetry, I pretty much always turn to nature. It's springtime, and so naturally for me, it's a um time when I'm very connected to what's going on around me. And um at that time, obviously, birds are nesting, sounding their mating calls, they're more active, they're more audible, and it's just nice to be connected and considering what they're up to and and what that means for where we are in the world.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

Absolutely, but most people, when they sort of look at nature, they look at it and think, oh, isn't that beautiful, isn't that a lovely bird, or something like that? But you actually want to step forward with this, that actually you try to see what lessons um that we could apply to our world through nature and using the poetry as well to help show that you know we are like this but animal or like this animal, it can influence our lives one way or another. Where did that come from?

SPEAKER_00 2:16

I think there are a lot of lessons to learn from nature, mostly that it's sometimes the simple things that can be the most beautiful or the most credible, talented. You'll see what appears to be a little brown bird, and it can end up having the most extraordinary vocal range and be exquisitely beautiful, or you'll see a blackbird that tends to conjure darkness and gloom and not see as a thing of joy, but actually when looking close up, you'll realize that its feathers can contain a rainbow and can be deep and rich and luscious. So you should always look for more, and you should always believe that there is more than what's on the surface.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

So you you mentioned about the brown bird there. I think that that's a brilliant starting point for us to talk about the first episode in this season, which was the story How the Nightingale got its song. Now, before we get into the uh story itself and and what that lesson is that comes out of that one, I think it's right to give you a platform to talk about something I know that's quite near and dear to your heart, which is how the nightingale is seen.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

Yeah, it's true. I um I sometimes take issue when I watch these nature programs, and there's always a focus on the male being the most um flamboyant and colourful, and then they turn to the female and normally say, Oh well, yeah, the the female's just you know boring brown bird. The nightingale is is an ordinary brown bird, but look at what it actually does and can do and what uh how phenomenal it is. And I would also say it's a beautiful bird.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

So we will talk, obviously, as I said, about how the nightingale got its song, but just before that, the nightingale is an endangered species, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 4:16

Very much so, yes. We um we believe that there's probably only about 30 more years of nightingales and uh before they become extinct, which is so sad when you can think that there's many people that don't even know what a nightingale sounds like, and we can lose some of these species without becoming aware of them and how wonderful these creatures are. It's um yeah, it's incredibly sad. So Sam Lee has been campaigning for awareness of the bird itself and and wanting to make sure that people know what this bird is, he's been uh organising trips out to the countryside for these little retreats where you can listen to the bird at night, the male bird which which sings as part of its mating ritual in in the spring.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

What we'll do is we'll put a link to the Singin' Win Nightingales evenings in the episode description below. So if you would like that incredibly powerful experience for yourself and to support this bird, then you can go ahead and follow that link. Let's come into the story now, shall we? And the quote that you chose for this one is by Ralph Waldo Emerson. What lies behind us, what lies before us, are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. And I think from what I understood from this one is that you were saying very much that it's not about your outward appearance. You may think, oh, I'm just an ordinary looking person, but yet I possess these extraordinary talents.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

Yeah, as I say, you you can't judge people from from what they look like. And um there's so much to each of us, and each individual has its own uniqueness and value, uh, you know, and and the the the question of beauty is is questionable anyway. What is beauty and who gets to say what who's the most beautiful? But certainly, yeah, I believe you should always stop and look beyond what's on the surface.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

Let's move on to uh Ode to a Nightingale then. And before we talk about this one, let's talk about the process. Because I know that this is a poem that both you and me have found a bit impenetrable and quite difficult to understand. And if you've not had a chance to go ahead and listen to that episode, I really encourage you to go back and listen to it. Because I don't know about you, but I found that the moment I listened to how we did it, suddenly I understood a poem that I never could understand before. How do we reach that point, or did you reach that point, I should say?

SPEAKER_00 6:57

I think with poetry there are various ways into it, and one of them is just reading it for yourself, actually helps to perhaps get a bit of an understanding of the place and perspective from uh from the writer themselves. We did a bit of research on what the the suggested meanings were, and you know, maybe those meanings aren't relevant or uh ausperious in some way, but it's it is a good place to start, and um it gave us some guidance in how to read it, how to approach that poem. We decided that uh it was useful to split the voice to have the intimate voice, which the poet themselves is voice, um, talking about their feelings, and uh a secondary voice which is perhaps more external, or it could be the voice inside your head that's speaking to you who is has a slightly different slant, maybe more joyful, maybe more hopeful, giving you a sense of um a different way of looking at things. Perhaps life isn't as gloomy as it first appears.

SPEAKER_01 8:09

Yeah, absolutely. And for somebody like myself, I sometimes struggle when I'm in a beautiful moment, suddenly that sort of a dark thought slips into your head. You're almost wrestling with your own inner inner thoughts in that situation. And I think this poem really talks about the value of living in the moment. Would you agree?

SPEAKER_00 8:30

Yeah, uh absolutely. I guess the whole purpose or the the whole objective of the poem is to make this thank you to the bird who has given you that special moment in time, perhaps stopped time passing and stopped the the demons growling in your head. He's overtaken it by his beautiful voice and made you uh see a kind of a stillness and letting all of the troubles that you might have fade away while you're just there listening to the bird in this very simple but beautiful moment.

SPEAKER_01 9:10

Yeah, we've got to learn to sometimes just let that beautiful situation that we're in wherever we are, but listening to a bird or whatever we are doing, and just live in that moment and just let that moment sort of dominate. So let's move on to the Rainbow Crow. It was something that when we first heard that story together at a storytelling event really stood out for you, uh, description about the feather of I record.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

Yeah, I I guess the whole poem is saying that there's more to things than than meets the eye, and that you'll look at a crow and its gloomy blackness seems to suggest that it's I don't know, some harbinger of doom. Even at the end, when you look when you look into the feather, you can see all the colours of the rainbow, you can see the iridescent light displayed with within it. So it's more than you realise.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

So the quote that we chose, uh well that you chose for this one was by Henry Bergson. The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend. And I know when we spoke about this poem, we talked about it. Um I think there was very much a sense of understanding people around you. So when somebody might be a bit rude to you on a on a bus or in their everyday life, actually we just think, oh, well, that's the rude person, but there could be things going on elsewhere. We just think, oh, that's just a uh a black bird, but actually there's more going on there if you look a little bit closer. So I think as we come back to the topic at hand here, which is lessons learned from nature, how did you get to this message uh through that story?

SPEAKER_00 10:57

I I love the fact that you're hearing this backstory to the crow, which changes everything you thought you knew about the bird. It gives you a very different perspective, especially the fact that you you see a black bird and that with those those associations of negativity or darkness and gloom that you think of with crows and ravens, when actually the bird's been entirely heroic and self-sacrificing in this story, and he's only been concerned with saving his fellow creatures. In doing so, he's brought upon himself, he's covered himself in soot. And there are two things. One, he's not what we thought he was, and two, just because he's black doesn't mean that's not beautiful. Black is beautiful, there are gorgeous colours within the the feathers if you look closely.

SPEAKER_01 11:59

Wonderful, thank you. So let's move on to your uh your poems then. Can you remind us what were the four poems?

SPEAKER_00 12:07

If I remember correctly, Beltane Fire, Owl on Hunter's Moon, Riverbed, and and Evergreen, my one of my older poems.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

So I think the exciting thing about poetry is how different people hear different meanings. And I love when we read poetry together, you'll say, I took this from it, and I'll say, Well, I took something entirely different. And when I heard your poems, I couldn't help but hear a really deep connection with nature and hearing the importance of stepping into somebody else's shoes almost. Uh, you seem to have that real deep understanding and almost empathy with the world around you. So I think I want to start off by asking uh what inspires you about nature.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

I think I call upon moments in nature when I'm writing. I don't have a sense of being inspired as such, but if I'm trying to describe a feeling, trying to describe an experience and how I need to deal with that, I invariably call upon a place outside in in nature, it could be trees, it could be birds, animals. There's something going back to the core that feels important if you're delving into yourself and um trying to describe emotions. Invariably you need to find that inner wildness. It makes sense to take that from nature.

SPEAKER_01 13:42

So let's have a look at the four different poems that we have. Tell me, Even each one of them. I know we talked, spoke about each one of them in turn, and looked at the lesson, um, looked at how each one of them shows us stepping into the shoes of something else or someone else as well. When we look at something like Belltime Fire. Can you show us the different perspectives that you show through those ones?

SPEAKER_00 14:06

Riverbed is a little bit like I was saying just now, it's how the movement of a river can be a mirror image of of you, what's going on in your your your mind, yourself, how your experiences are being absorbed and reflected back within a river. All of our memories are because the river passes through all communities and all places and seems to capture something of all of us. The owl on Hunter's Moon, going back to the theme we talked about before of seeing something different to what you assume. So you see an owl basically having his supper and thinks that it's a cruel creature, but actually he's just he's just doing what he does every day, we all have to eat.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

I thought the beltone fire was very interesting, if I can speak on that one. Um, because I thought that what was fascinating about that one, whereas the other ones are very much rooted in in seeing nature, that one was more about when you are sitting around a a fire with a bunch of strangers, you don't know what's going on in each of their lives. You see that couple sitting there, and what looks like just an ordinary moment is obviously for at least one of them an incredibly deep uh personal experience.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

I think that's that's very true, and a lot of people would maybe hear that, and uh the the name Bell Tame Fire, and and it's it doesn't mean too much that doesn't hold any significance, and it and you can be sitting looking at a fire, and it's just two people doing exactly that, it's um a thing that keeps you warm, or you can see it in a different way, and it can signify a point in the season, it can signify what is essentially the end of spring and the beginning of summer, and how invigorating it it is, thinking about the the the coming warmth, the coming summer, and it's a time for gathering around fires in in a social context, so it's the end of those more isolated days of winter and the beginning of the warmth of people's company. Obviously, in the poem in particular, it's one person and it's that love that um is kind of generating and building like a fire does.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

And let's talk about the last one to talk about. So, of course, uh Evergreen, wasn't it? It's the one we haven't spoken about. So tell us whose or what's perspective were we taken within Evergreen.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

I'm interested in how other people read that poem because I know when you heard it you you thought it was about a tree, and and I suppose, like I said before, I often use trees and animals um as imagery. In and and for me it's not, it's just about how love can last forever, it's about something staying evergreen, and it can in this respect, I guess it's a relationship that comes and blossoms and then dies, and you part, but the the love is still there.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

And I think that's a really great thing to talk about. What started and why we started this podcast was that we wanted to take stories and poems and look at them in different ways, talk about what we what we took away from them, um, but then also encourage other people to write back at us and say, Well, actually, I took I took this point, I took this point. So I think it'd be really interesting with Evergreen to hand that over to our listeners um and ask them to to comment below, to leave a a review or a comment, uh or reach out to us on uh on Instagram. Well, all the links will be below. Tell us what you thought Evergreen was about. Do you think it was what I thought was, which was a tree and taking the perspective of a tree, or do we think it's about ever love, or do we something else entirely that maybe we insore?

SPEAKER_00 18:14

I think the important thing with poetry is that you you are handing it over to your listener and you've gifted it, but it's not no longer yours. It becomes theirs and they they hear it and they get from it um something entirely different that's relevant to them, and and maybe the name Evergreen also points to that too. It's always relevant to someone.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

Brilliant. Well, thank you very much, uh Joanna for joining me around the fire. And if you've enjoyed this more conversational by the hearth uh episode, let me know. Put a comment below, send me a review, send me a personal message, let me know because we can continue to do by the hearth in this style going forward. Is this something that you're enjoying? We've got the next season now coming up, something I'm very, very excited about. We've got some guest readers coming in, people who are, I would say, my real inspiration. Oh, definitely. Some incredible writers, performers. If you'd like to join us either by the hearth for a conversation, if you have something you'd like to hear us do, we would be very happy to can that happen, wouldn't we?

SPEAKER_00 19:25

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

So thank you very much for joining us for a slightly different by the hearth episode today. And we will look forward to welcoming you back to the hearth uh in a more traditional format next week. From me, Dr. Embers, thank you very much. And from Joanna, where can we find you?

SPEAKER_00 19:44

I am available on Facebook and Instagram as Joanna Rose Vale.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

Fantastic. Thank you very much, and have a lovely evening.