!['You're not really going to use these photos, right?' Fiona Robyn and Kaspalita on the waterfront at Aberystwyth, Wales](https://i0.wp.com/www.vianegativa.us/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Fiona-and-Kaspa.jpg?resize=500%2C192)
Brew yourself a nice cuppa and join Fiona Robyn, Kaspalita and me for a conversation about writing, religion, spirituality, science, small stones and more. We met on May 7 in Aberystwyth, Wales; Fiona and Kaspa subsequetly tied the knot on June 18th, and starting on July 1 they will again curate a month-long river of stones, with contributions from around the world.
Fiona Robyn is a novelist, a blogger, a therapist, and a creativity coach. She is very fond of Earl Grey tea and homemade cake. Kaspalita is a Pure Land Buddhist priest, a sometime blogger and is still learning to play the ukulele. Together they are on a mission, they say, to help people connect with the world through writing. In addition to the river of stones (see the aggregator blog) they also host the Writing Our Way Home forum and run e-courses on writing, spirituality and connecting to the world. Fiona has even written an e-book, available as a free download, called How to Write Your Way Home.
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Theme music: “Le grand sequoia,” by Innvivo (Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike licence).
This is lovely. A quiet and rambling conversation with some real gems that set me thinking very deeply.
You know, Dave, you personify what Fiona mentioned – the ability not to jump in and control a conversation or situation, but to let it unfold in its own time. That’s one reason why the Woodrat Podcasts are so outstanding.
Second take is often better… the first one is perhaps more polished in the sense of mentally prepared and giving what you wanted to give or say or do. Whereas, the second one, after the tension of the first is released, that performance is over, it’s easier to be who you are. I love the tea house atmosphere. The conversational style. The depths that are reached in meetings like these, where you hear each other above the din of background voices, and which contain moments, gems, that you’d like to remember. You all sound so real, like I was sitting at the same table! A lovely revealing candid podcast…. I’m so glad you came back with this one, Dave.
Thanks for the kind words, Brenda and Jean. I’m glad you didn’t find the coffeeshop noises too distracting, because I recorded a conversation with Will Buckingham in a similar sort of environment. As for the fact that we had to do two takes, yes — I doubt I could’ve come up with a better strategy for getting a reserved British couple to open up, even if I’d tried! I forgot to say in my intro that between the first and second takes, we all went over to the National Library for the opening of the Clive Hicks-Jenkins exhibition, so I think that probably played a role, too.
It’s great to put a voice with someone I’ve been blogging with for so long, and cool to listen to Kaspalita, too. The coffee shop amounted to nice atmospherics.
Thank you all – so happy that you could sit at the table with me Dave and my hubbie.
Reserved British couple? We’ll have to try harder to be more shockingly open next time : )
Thank you Dave for all your work on our podcast and all the others.