The hottest months of summer in a big city can feel debilitating. Too hot to run, walk or play outside except at the shoulders of the day and far worse, for me at least, is being imprisoned in freezing cubes of air conditioning thereafter. When we lock ourselves inside, scuttling as quickly as possible from office to shops and back home again, the loss of nature can feel immense.
But as every happiness pod will tell you, dealing with uncomfortable environments is as much about changing your mindset as it is about secretly turning off the air con when no one is looking. This is where the immersive quality of podcasts comes into its own, particularly for headphone users. No other medium gets as physically close to you, allowing words and music to be piped directly into your brain, changing how you feel.
Not everyone likes this intimacy and that is probably why podcasts do not have the “penetration” rates of television. But for those who happily tolerate earbuds, here are several shows to transport you to cooler climes for a breath of fresh air. As well as helping to tune out the heat and ambient clamour, sometimes it is just a case of refreshing your senses and giving you ideas to more fully appreciate nature the next chance you get to spend time in it.
As Melissa Harrison, host of The Stubborn Light of Things, says, “If you live in a city and miss ‘nature’, the answer doesn’t have to be move out; it’s to tune in.” I love a title that tells you what’s inside the tin. Notable guests tell a life-affirming story from their past, interspersed with gentle meditation prompts from host Rohan Gunatillake, a well-being entrepreneur who also works for the National Health Service in Scotland.
It could be described as a meditation podcast for people who don’t have the patience for meditation and, produced by former TED execs, each episode offers an accessible approach to mindful practices. Storytellers include author Isabel Allende, singer-songwriter Jason Mraz and comedian Tig Notaro but the episode from venture capitalist Tony Tjan conjures up his Canadian childhood amid the icy blasts of Newfoundland’s cliff tops and the open kindness of neighbours towards his newly immigrant parents. Some people will think this is a joke.
Each episode of this award-winning podcast opens with the sound of someone pottering about, the swing of an (always squeaky) gate and footsteps before the host mutters, “Welcome to the Walking Podcast. I’m Jon Mooallem.” And that’s it.
The rest of the episode records Mooallem’s measured footsteps as he tramps, quite quickly, through the woodlands around his home on Bainbridge Island, near Seattle, in the United States. It is not as if the man can’t use words – he is a New York Times journalist and author – but the “no talking, just walking” format is peaceful and transportative. I fell asleep five minutes into my first episode but immediately went back for more.
In this episode, the host also takes a short mid-roll break to answer the question, “Is your podcast a joke?” Melissa Harrison is another journalist who turned podcaster during the strange times of the pandemic. Her field recordings of walks in the countryside around her home in Suffolk, England, became a life raft of gentle encouragement to many who were stuck inside. On her wanders, Harrison softly describes the natural beauty around her while we listen to birdsong and leaves shushing gently in the breeze.
With the addition of nature-inspired writings read by guest poets and authors, it is an instant tonic for busy, overheated, indoor days. This episode’s walk to enjoy the dawn chorus inspired me to get up and out at 4am and do the same. It might have been the lack of sleep but I found it magical.
Sounds of nature form the beating heart of this innovative nine-part audio drama, a collaboration between Britain’s Radio 4 and three universities. Describing itself as an “environmental thriller”, this is a compelling listen that features superb acting, atmospheric music and a fast-paced plot. Pan, a 24th century audio archivist – who has never so much as seen a tree – discovers a recording of a jungle and having no idea what it is, becomes obsessed.
But each episode also comes with separate “pod talks” given by scientists and mesmerising soundscape episodes to draw us deeper into the climate-change themes that inspired the show. This is immersive storytelling at its best. This short but evocative four-part series from Radio New Zealand charts the journey of visual artist Joseph Michael as he and his 12-man crew record the sights and sounds of Antarctica for an installation that was projected onto the War Memorial Museum in Auckland.
For such a restricted part of the world, there are many excellent podcasts detailing the first-hand experience of adventurers and scientists who go there but I doubt if any of them capture the physical sense of the winds and glacial temperatures quite as well as this one. It is the radio people who have again achieved first-rate sound design..
