Walkie-Talkies

In this series of posts, you will find the ‘Walkie-Talkies’, a series of short videos (ten to twenty minutes) in which, as the title suggests, I talk while walking in nature.

During these Walkie-Talkies, I discuss all kinds of topics that are relevant to A Biosphere Project: intuitive reflections on ecology, philosophy, science, our place in the Universe, and so on. I talk without a script, depending on what the moment and the place inspire me to say.

As in the Musings, the focus in these Walkie-talkies will be on positive energy and hopeful news, on new ideas and on love for our world.

Walkie-Talkie #13 ‘Turning the Titanic Around’

Dear friends, Due to circumstances, it’s been a while since I last sent a Walkie-Talkie out into the world. But to make up for it, you’ll get a bit of extra time! During this walk, which lasts about thirty minutes, I talk about the climate disaster summer in Europe and other parts of the world. I discuss the still (very) inadequate attention being paid to this increasing climate misery, and the abominable response from governments and political actors worldwide. The political

Walkie-Talkie #12 ‘What Can Molehills Teach Us About Science and Our Paradigm?’

D ear friends, In this Walkie-Talkie number twelve, I find myself back in the sculpture park near Antwerp, and I invite you on a little thought exercise, inspired by the many molehills scattered across the park's lawn, betraying the presence of our little underground friends. In the first part, I explain how we can see molehills, and especially our rather fruitless battle against them, as a good analogy for our constant attempts to control nature and the desperate struggle to

Walkie-Talkie #11 ‘What Is Wrong With Our World View? Everything, Pretty Much!’

D ear friends, During this walk, I will delve a little deeper into our current worldview and the reasons why our worldview is not really of great help us to be in a better relation to our living world, our biosphere. In Walkie-Talkie #10 , I gave a few examples of worldviews and their connection to underlying ideas about consciousness and ‘mind’. I tried to clarify to what degree a worldview or paradigm can have a decisive influence on the relationship between a civilization

Walkie-Talkie #10 ‘Why Mind (Or Never Mind?)’

D ear friends, In Walkie-Talkie #10 I continue where I left off last time: with the great 19th-century psychologist and philosopher William James and his notion of the ‘filter theory’, a remarkable theory about consciousness and ‘mind’. During the previous walk , I briefly explained why I find William James and his work so important and relevant, and now I will go into that in more detail, as well as the question of why we need to talk about the ‘mind’. Why is it necessary

Walkie-Talkie #9 'Yes! The Word Exists! (And Something About Willam James)'

D ear, friends, First of all, I would like to wish you and your loved ones a wonderful new year, filled with love, friendship, health, energy, hope, and all the good things in life! It is not always easy to maintain a positive attitude with everything we see happening in the world at the moment, and sometimes it even seems easy to lose all hope that things will ever be okay with this world. The first week of the new year did not seem to promise much good in that regard. But w

Walkie-Talkie #8 'Pay Attention to the Spaces in Between'

D ear friends, Saturday, October 25, was a productive day, because Walkie-Talkie #8 was also recorded that afternoon, just after the two previous ones. On my way back to the village, I continue talking about our habit of constantly dividing reality into smaller and smaller ‘parts’, and then thinking that by observing those parts we can understand what the whole means. A strange idea, once you start thinking about it even just a little. I also talk about how we tend to isolate

Walkie-Talkie #7 'Something About Atoms, Deer, Diagrams and Consensus Reality'

D ear friends, This Walkie-Talkie was recorded immediately after the previous one. I continue walking on a forest path in the province of Somogy in Hungary, close to the village where I spend a considerable part of the year, and I pick up where I left off at the end of the previous Walkie-Talkie. I talk a little more about Alfred North Whitehead and his process philosophy, the connection with quantum physics, how the diagrams and models of atoms that we are all more or less f

Walkie-Talkie #6 'Why Do We Confuse Symbols With Reality?'

D ear friends, In Walkie-Talkie number six, I am walking on a country road in the province of Somogy in Hungary. If you are curious about why I spend a lot of time in Hungary, I refer you to the pages ‘ About me ’ and ‘ My path ’ on the website of A Biosphere Project. During this walk, I continue to talk about how we project ‘maps’ or concepts onto reality, and then come to regard those maps or concepts as more real than the terrain itself. Someone who had a lot to say about

Walkie-Talkie #5 'Next Level: What Lies Beyond the Map?'

D ear friends, In Walkie-Talkie number five, I am walking on a forest path in the Julian Alps in Slovenia. I'll spare you the story of how I got there, as it would have made this ‘talk’ too long. But I'll continue where I left off last time leaning against the old tree, namely the fact that the old, mechanistic ‘map’ we have been projecting onto nature, onto living organisms and ourselves, is incorrect. New (and not so new) developments in biology and systems thinking show us

Walkie-Talkie #4 'Some Amazing Tree Talk'

D ear friends, In this fourth Walkie-Talkie, I rub my back against a large old tree, and talk a little about why the ‘map’ we have...

Walkie-Talkie #3 ''Why Did I Stop Painting? (Part Two)''

D ear friends, In this third ‘Walkie-Talkie,’ I continue to talk about why I stopped my practice as a visual artist to devote myself to the ecological meta-crisis. I discuss our tendency to consider the maps we have created as more real than the terrain, how our concepts and maps prevent us from seeing solutions and possibilities because they do not fit into our concepts, and why we cannot see the various aspects of the meta-crisis, such as the climate crisis, the biodiversit

Walkie-Talkie #2 'Why Did I Stop Painting? (Part One)'

D ear friends, In this second ‘Walkie-Talkie’, I talk about why we need to see the distinction between ‘nature’ and ‘civilization’ in a different perspective, why we need to feel much more that we too are part of nature, and why we should stop using the word ‘ the environment ’. I also begin to explain why it was necessary and relevant for me to exchange my paintbrushes for A Biosphere Project. I begin that story by explaining how my visual art dealt with all the topics that