Show Notes
We’re exploring the boundary between our world and the world of myth, mysticism, and magic. We’ll discover how some of the customs and practices from our ancient ancestors continue to influence our relationship with the natural world today.
To begin, we’re opening our ears to some of the sounds of the natural world and the inanimate objects that produce them. On a trip to Serengeti, Jahawi stumbled across rocks which, when hit by another type of rock, produced different sounds. He leads us into the world of the rocks that ‘sing’.
The Baka are one of the oldest hunter gatherer societies in the world. They’re physically and spiritually connected to the forests they inhabit. This connection runs so deep that they believe their top hunters have the ability to experience the world from another animal’s point of view.
And in South Africa she’s known as the ‘frog lady’, but Dr Jeanne Tarrant didn’t always love them. Like many others, she grew up scared of frogs. Now, however, she works tirelessly to protect them, which includes dispelling some surprising myths that continue to put the lives of these amphibians at risk.
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More from BBC Earth Podcast
The show takes a spooky turn as we go on a ghost hunt through the natural world. Sebastian shares his adventures finding fossils – the traces of animals that once lived, and Rutendo talks about her experiences in The Cradle of Humankind, the South African UNESCO World Heritage site containing early human fossils.
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Sebastian is not afraid to admit that he lacks natural rhythm. But Rutendo thinks he’s too hard on himself – perhaps the world is just out of sync with him. Besides, every living thing is built upon natural rhythms, from our response to night and day, to the beating of our hearts.
In an age of individualism, sometimes we are more connected than we think. And the same is true for everything on the planet. Rutendo and Sebastian explore the question of how and why we define an individual, a colony, or a group, across the animal kingdom.
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