Get Booked – Dr Easkey Britton, Ebb And Flow, Connect With The Patterns And Power Of Water 190623

Hello, I'm Hazel, and this is Get Booked, supporting women's and men's emotional well-being. I hope you are well and ready to get booked. Today on the show, we are going to be looking at the book Ebb and Flow by Dr. Iskie Britton. You can find out more at iskiebritton.com/ebb-flow. We are in the midst of a water crisis. Warmer, drier summers have resulted in water scarcity, with 7 regions in England, including London and the Southwest, predicted to be seriously water deprived by 2030. Driven by climate change and population growth. Dr. Iske Britton, a marine social scientist with a PhD in environment and society and a 5 times national female Irish surfing champion, as well as author of several books on our relationship with water, including 50 Things to Do by the Sea, Saltwater in the Blood, and most recently, and today's book here on GetBooked, Ebb and Flow. Connect with the patterns of, and power of water. We'll be chatting to Iske very shortly, and I do believe she's going to do a little bit of a reading of Ebb and Flow as well. A quick reminder to pop onto womensradiostation.com and mensradiostation.com to see what we have on offer from all our many other presenters. See what other shows tickle your pickle. And, and if you are looking for many more book suggestions, maybe you get through books like hot dinners similar to myself, my latest book reviews are up on hazelbutterfield.com. Go and check them out. And likewise, if you come across a book and you think I'd like it, or maybe you think one of our listeners would like it, please do get in touch. You can follow me on Instagram at @getbookedwrs or on Twitter @NuttyButty, or pop me a message on my website at hazelbutterfield.com. Coming up next week, we actually have the— haha— the author of Shooters, the sassy, sizzling romantic comedy about wedding photography. I've read this book and it was so much fun. Shooters is by the author Giulia Boggio. Now, Stella Price is determined to become a successful wedding photographer. Even if it means learning from Connor Knight, a wedding shooter with a sexy rock star status and an ego to match. Ah, imagine that. Burnt by an affair that ended her last career, Stella should know better than to get entangled with Connor during a residential course in a romantic French château. But how can you not? But while his arrogance turns her off, his talent turns her on. Their clashes lead to a whirlwind of passion, but Stella struggles to frame a with a man who's come to distrust happily ever afters and hides a softer side behind his image. Can Stella learn from her past mistakes and teach Connor about real love before he disappears from the picture? I'm looking forward to chatting to Julia. She's done some incredible things with her socials to help promote her book, and I'd love to grill her on some of the techniques and how she got to find out about some of these tactics to get her book out there. She's doing fantastically. Right now, time on Get Booked for Women's and Men's radio station for Ebb and Flow by Iskie Britton and Dr. Iskie Britton. I'm sure many of you listening will understand the concept of being calmer when by the ocean, or needing a swim to clear the mind, either wild or otherwise. We know that our mental health suffers if we neglect having enough time in nature. The long winters will attest to that. Although we know it, we rarely stop to analyze why, what the science is. Ebb and Flow, today's book, helps to decipher this while also looking at the important elements— excuse the pun— of how our propensity to take water and its often unrealized properties for granted to our detriment. Now, today's guest and author, Iske, is joining us now. Let's get stuck into this. Welcome to the show. Hey, thanks so much for having me, Hazel. Hello from the west coast of Ireland. Yeah, I must say I'm a huge water fan. I love being in it in any capacity. Huge swimmer. Sometimes the best way just to end a day is to go and do a bit of wild swimming. Um, I love the ocean. The idea of just taking the dog down to the beach on a weekend when I need to get away from London, it completely Ctrl+Alt+Deletes me. I love it, and I do not appreciate it anywhere near as much as I thought I did. I have devoured Ebb and Flow. I have learned so much, and you don't even realize so much of what's going on around us is actually to our detriment. You sometimes see all these, um, wind farms in the ocean, and you see dams, and you just think, wow, what an incredible construction. We don't actually understand the science behind it, what it's doing to our ecosystem, and we don't go into depth about the importance of what we are doing to our waters. And just the general cycle of life. And I've really enjoyed learning about it. And I think a lot of us are just completely in denial or blasé or too busy to think about it. And it's, it's going to get too late if we're not careful. Yeah, it's wonderful to hear you've been enjoying diving into ebb and flow. And yeah, we do look at our Yeah, I couldn't resist. But yeah, really looking at how our, I suppose, our human relationship with water and how it's changing, but also how that relationship with water can change us, and in particular the impact on our health and wellbeing, both positive and negative, depending on the health of our waters. Well, yeah, I mean, you do, I do read a lot of articles on wild swimming. I do absolutely love it. There's a place near me actually that it's a completely non-motorized lake, and they're going through one of these, um, change.orgs at the moment to try and stop the flow of certain elements of the Thames and certain sewage being pumped into it, because they're trying yet again to just kind of ruin another body of water. Um, people are trying their best, but there's a lot to be done. Um, and it was great hearing about, in Ebb and Flow, about all the blue health initiatives to get people to connect with our water environments around us and, and just to try and involve ourselves with the cause. Yeah, and I think for me as like a blue health researcher, what I'm most interested in is looking at that connection that we have and very much coming out of from exploring what a truly reciprocal relationship with water looks like. So an awareness and understanding of how it can, you know, benefit our health and well-being. As you said at the start, how we sort of feel naturally drawn to water, to, you know, we feel calmer around it, it alters our mood, uh, all those kinds of things. And then also recognizing at the same time that access to like healthy water, um, is becoming increasingly challenging in all parts of the world. Um, and of course then more recently in, in the UK in particular with all the, the raw sewage, um, outflow into some of the most beautiful bathing waters at a time when people really rely on it so much for that kind of respite and relaxation in a world that's increasingly challenging, you could say. Well, yes, definitely. I mean, I was one of those kids, and I'm sure— I gather you've just had a baby. Congratulations. Thank you. And I'm sure your baby is going to be very similar to how I was as a child, and, you know, dangerously so. I would jump in any body of water I could, you know. It was literally like a grab her, we're about to go near a stream and I'd just be running off. And I've always been a strong swimmer, um, but I absolutely love it. But water is, it's fickle, it's supportive, but it's dangerous and we need to appreciate it. But also when we do appreciate it, and if we have got access to being able to learn to appreciate water properly, it's incredibly empowering, isn't it? It is. I think like water and our water bodies really kind of mirror how we're doing as a society, you know, because it connects everything. Water is the carrier of, you know, it's a flow of information. It kind of takes all of who we are, you know, including our waste, and it's— but it's continually cycling that like all around the world and through all the bodies on the planet, human and more than human. And so it's It touches everything and then also carries everything with it and in it. And so it really does mirror the health of how we are as individuals and our communities and then as a society. I think the current state of most of the world's waters being so degraded, especially compared to any other environment, they're in kind of rapid decline, is a reflection of that kind of separation we've had from nature in our modern society. And so really, you know, the motivation behind Ebb and Flow was looking at ways to restore those kind of lost connections, both individually but also kind of collectively too. Well, you actually discuss in the book— it's actually near the beginning, I think about page 25-ish— you refer to the kind of historical issues on accessibility to water, to learning to swim, particularly in regards to Black people. And I wanted to point out, have you heard about the Color the Water campaign out in California? Uh, no, actually I haven't. Oh, uh, it's David Milana. He set up a surf school for the BIPOC community to encourage them to take up space in the ocean where they offer free surf lessons to marginalized communities who haven't in the past have access or have not been— it's not been kind of bred into the culture because of historical issues. It's fantastic. Charity and an organization. Go and check it out. Color the Water, spelled the American way. Oh, Color the Water, brilliant. And I'm hearing about more and more of those as well. I mean, there's like Black Girls Surf, another initiative based in the States as well, and Native Like Water. So kind of reclaiming that indigenous connection to water and access to it again that would have been kind of taken away during colonization. And then closer to home in the UK, you have Reclaim the Sea, a kind of amazing initiative, kind of helping to restore Reclaim the Sea is a safe and healing space for refugees, for many of whom have had a traumatic experience with water and, you know, trying to cross it to reach safety. And then, you know, it's incredible to also see the transformative power that's possible, like the healing that's possible through water because it has such— leaves such a powerful imprint on us. But then that, you know, space really needs to be held and facilitated to hold that, to enable that for really diverse groups to people, because it does tend to be very exclusive even when we think of like water sports and surfing. And there's such like, there's certain stereotypes out there of how you're supposed to look or be if you are a surfer, for example. And so it's great to see more and more initiatives really challenging that narrative. And you know, just really kind of worrying statistics out there that when I was researching the book, and this is everywhere in the world, but the gender inequality and the ability to swim and just how there's such a gender imbalance there in every country in the world where women and girls are, you know, less likely to be able to swim than the men and the boys. And that's more pronounced then in obviously lower income places and in developing countries with huge consequences, I think, both in terms of limiting access to the experiences of such joy and healing that we can have through things like Blue Health and Ocean Therapy, but also then from a safety point of view when we're living in a especially in coastal areas where there's increasing risk of flooding, natural disasters, and climate change, and women and girls just less able to escape those situations, which we saw then happen, like, during the 2004 tsunami in particular in Southeast Asia. Yeah, I was reading quite a lot of the historical elements in Ebb and Flow towards the end of the book about why these— there are these gender differences. I mean, there's this drowning women because they're supposedly witches, you know, if you sink you're not a witch, which you drown, if you float you're a witch so you get killed, uh, or there's, there's issues of, um, you know, back in the day when it was women who were expected to kind of get pail all the water and carry it back. And so they developed a hatred of it. There were a lot of historical issues surrounding why there is this separatedness. Yeah, it was interesting researching it because it was felt like this almost perversion of water as sacred. And water is very much holding that more feminine energy of like the healing power, being a source of life, all those qualities. So we have so much in our, you know, in our mythology. That associates to water bodies and rivers and lakes, and in particular with that, with the feminine energy, with the goddess. And they were kind of— these water bodies were all revered for that kind of power and the embodiment of it. And then seeing with the arrival of, especially during the industrial era, the shift then of water as this commodity, something to extract, a resource, or to be controlled and managed, which is continuing into today. And so then the shift in all of those narratives, and you see then this perversion where water then is kind of used against women, um, when power is very much taken away. And then of course it becomes actually associated with the death and repression of women, or as something— as this— as a real burden to literally carry, with women being the kind of water carriers the world over, with having to provide water for families. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there are so many different elements to this book. You really do cover a very well-rounded section of, well, all the elements to do with water, its benefits, the issues, the mystical side, the power, the blue health initiatives as well. Was there a particular section that you just loved writing more than any others? Oh, great question. Well, it was, it was funny because the process of, well, process of writing a book is always interesting, what kind of wants to emerge. So it's a combination of, of the initial sort of motivation to write the book and you have this general perhaps outline or structure. And then as you research, like I thought starting out writing the book, you know, I've been a surfer my whole life. I'm a Blue Health, you know, you know, research scientists in this area for over a decade. It was like, I, I know water, right? Um, so, but actually I started, I nearly just realized, oh my goodness, I had to challenge so many of my own assumptions. I had a very obviously ocean-centric view as well. And part of the motivation to write Ebb and Flow, um, following off my previous book Saltwater in the Blood, which looked much more at the surfing and ocean, and the ocean was to look at, I suppose, water in all its forms to really open up that story of our connection with water to everyone, wherever we are on the planet, be that in a city or inland or not necessarily by the sea. And so, yeah, I learned— yeah, it was just incredible how much I didn't know or understand about water, even things like thinking about all the water that is in the planet right now in this moment and what a blue planet it is. But that's that water in our bodies, in our coffee, or in our glass of water we're drinking right now is 4 billion years old. Incredible. It's so unfathomable, isn't it? So you really wrap your head around that. Water also connects us with all life across all time because it's been continually cycling and renewing itself through all of life since the beginning of time. And so that's a real kind of, as a human with our sort of short, relatively short lifespan, ones. That's— it's such a remarkable way to begin to think about, you know, this, the sense of connection in a different way, as well as a relationship with, with time. So all of that, and for example, even with the water and the different forms it's in, just to even think right now that all the water and all the sort of flowing through all the rivers at this moment in time, the same volume of water is also flowing and moving through all the plants on the land. So through all the trees and everything else. So we tend not to think of water in that way either. And, and then since even researching the book, more and more is kind of coming up in this area. But a mathematician recently carried out a study looking at again, the interconnectivity of water, you know, which can be a powerful metaphor, but he really wanted to get a look at the science of okay, well, does water really connect us all? So say a drop of water in my body right now, how long would it take for that drop of water to show up on the opposite side of the planet in another body or river or plant. And it would only take 6 months of that. That's how much water is continuously cycling through life. So I just thought it's a very profound way to kind of rethink this sense of connection we have with everything. I love that. I mean, as I stated at the beginning of the show to our listeners, I was telling them about how You are actually a social scientist with a PhD in environment and society, and yet this is your third book. You've actually written another one I was looking at, National— sorry, 50 Things to Do by the Sea. And yet you're on your third book and you're still— still so much more research that you're actually undertaking as well. It's kind of— it feels unlimited. Isn't it? Well, it is unlimited. I'm sure you'll— nobody will ever know everything. There's just so much to find out, isn't there? Yeah. And that's— I mean, there's a whole chapter on— in the book on mystery. So that became really evident. And I kind of was fascinated by that. But, you know, there's, you know, my training is in more in— in as a scientist, but also have that real draw to the to weave it in with the spiritual and with other types and forms of knowledge, which I think has been, you know, the lack of integration of all those strands has been a real problem in how we sort of view the world. And so part of writing Ebb and Flow was how do I weave together this sort of the, say, that's called the more new science around blue health, but how that is speaking to and supporting the more ancient wisdom and knowledge around that interdependence with water and water as as life, you know, as an animate sort of living force itself. And so it's just very exciting to see those kind of strands come together as well. Yeah, I can imagine. And my kids quite often, they try to pretend that they don't care about my research and what I'm reading for the next show. But my youngest was like, oh, right, yeah, yeah, you're reading about the oceans. Isn't it true that, you know, we haven't even been to some of the depths of the ocean? I said, I don't think we ever will. We, you know, it's a whole world that we don't know about. And he was getting all excited about it. And I love it that, you know, he can, he sees something like, like ebb and flow, and he's involved as well and interested in the unknown. Oh, brilliant. Yeah. Yeah. It's because it is remarkable, even that, like, we still can't fully understand or know how all the water came to be here. You know, where did it, where did it come from? How did we get such a watery planet? And then the the fact that, you know, with so much of it being ocean, we only know, I think, or have explored, um, you know, there's still over 90% of the world's oceans we still haven't explored, or we don't know what's actually going on there, which is remarkable. And then, and yet then, um, we're still willing to go out and, you know, do deep seabed mining in areas we don't— when we don't even know maybe what we're destroying when we do things like that. Yeah. And all the time we're discovering new species, whole new ecosystems that are also giving us information and an understanding about how life itself is even possible. And Anna holds the, I think, the keys to so much of our, you know, even when you think about it from going back to health, but think of it in terms of like medicines. I think, I don't know off the top of my head, but it's a huge amount of percentage of our current everyday medicines and treatments that have actually come from the ocean or ocean species, or that have— that's where the kind of breakthroughs often happen. And that's where we learn so much from, from this world, from this watery world. This is what's actually quite contradictorily worrying, because there is so much research to be done, and there are so many benefits and knowledge we can gain from the ocean and from nature. That can help cure diseases or help fight them, or they can help us find new ways, more sustainable ways of energy, of attaining energy. But at the same time, we're destroying what we are using to kind of gain this knowledge. It's quite, you know, with one hand you're like, well, we kind of need it to help human nature, but also it's destroying something else and it's actually going to destroy us in the future if we overmine. That's the problem, we're overmining, aren't we? Well, I think that's it. You've hit it, hit it like kind of nail on the head, so to speak, that it's, it's that extractive approach to how we use the planet rather than live with it and as part of a living system. So that, to shift that takes, it's going to take an entire cultural shift in terms of the, in, in our current sort of modern society and the dominant interdependence of that sort of extractive take mentality. Yeah. And so it's how then do we look at creating, I suppose, a whole new system? And we see examples of it, say, in more sort of circular systems, or the work I write about and draw upon in the book by, say, surfer scientist Dr. Cliff Kapono, who kind of weaves together some of his, like, Native Hawaiian sort of practices that are very— that already look at that sort of ecological interdependence when it comes to land management and water management practices for hundreds or thousands of years, and then weaves that together with his, you know, training in biochemistry. So it's— that's really where I suppose what we need to be learning is from— from how do we weave those approaches together and look at when we're— yeah, by trying to solve one problem or find a solution, we're not creating so many more, doesn't it? Perpetuating the same system, which again is this story of separateness and disconnect and extracting, rather than how could we create something that's more reciprocal, that when we're— what are we actually contributing by doing what it is that we need to do in our everyday lives? How could that be a benefit rather than a negative impact? So how are we enhancing the, you know, the ecosystems or water around us rather than degrading? And so It's, yeah, it's definitely going to take a lot of, I think, needing to like restory, tell a lot of these sort of new stories of our relationship with the world is one, and then finding these new ways of reconnecting with what matters most. And really, for me, it's about that connection again with that aliveness and intimacy with the world around us, which is a challenge because we also live lives that are increasingly busy or increasingly distracted. Our attention is— there's never been such demand on it. And yet the very thing that can restore our attention and help us be present is just taking that moment to actually be in nature and recognize, oh, actually I'm always in, you know, because we're living on planet Earth, so we are always in nature. And I think people also feel maybe it's somewhere they have to like go away to or make time for, rather than thinking actually I'm a body of water, you know, literally we're like water and it's cycling through us up to 17 times a year. And so we're already immediately connected with our environment, whether we're conscious of it or not. So yeah, how do we bring more consciousness to that connection? Well, I think the modern day issue is that unfortunately the destruction and over-abuse of water is linked to, well, the financial elements, how lucrative it is. It's about supplying energy and it's about medicine, and they are very, very lucrative industries that— and money talks. So for people who are listening now, how can they respond to the crisis and help with the fight to say our oceans. Yeah, I think, because I mean, that's one of the greatest myths, isn't it? Is that it's, and the most, one of the most destructive stories is that we, we need money above all else to survive. But you, you know, you can't eat money, you can't breathe money. And, you know, it's that. And of course we do in a capitalist society, it is what makes things function. But again, it's a creation itself of our own imagination of humans. It's part of the story that we wrote only relatively recently as well. So I guess my answer, there's no easy answer, no straightforward one, but it is kind of actually recognizing actually what is the story I'm listening to and telling myself, like, where are my beliefs coming from? What is it I actually really value most? What is it that makes me feel most alive and whole? And how do I bring more of that into what I do in my everyday life? Actually just starting there, that even itself is a subtle form of activism. And thinking about actually what is the story I want to live into now? And I think we're at this moment really where we actually get to do that. That because we're entering such a period of uncertainty, of unknowability, it actually offers us the opportunity to imagine an entirely different way of being. And that might sound enormous or a bit too out there, but actually just bringing it back to in your own life, in your own home, how do you start to integrate a little bit of that back into your life? I think a really good starting point for people who are listening right now and saying, right, okay, I want to understand blue health more. I want to understand the waters more. I want to understand more about what they can do. Honestly, I think the best thing they can do is read Ebb and Flow and find out what— well, but then they can read all the different elements, find what strikes a chord with them, what actually ignites a passion, because there are so many different elements of this book where people go, right, okay, I'm going to work on my blue, the blue health element. And involve myself with the oceans more. And the more you do that, the more you incorporate yourself in that kind of way, um, the more you can develop the appreciation and find the motivation to move forward. Or, or maybe you can do something through work, you know, use one of the initiatives and kind of roll it out in that way. You know, there are so many different— there isn't one way for everybody to work or to appreciate what is written about in, in Ebb and Flow. So I think it's, you know, it's a good starting point. It's quite an easy read for a lot of science. Yeah, thanks. I really appreciate that, um, kind of insight. And like, exactly, like, they— I wanted to make that as accessible as possible. So obviously, to sort of, to write about our connection, but then also, like, to get at the, well, how do you connect with water, and how do you create a culture of reciprocity? And so at the end of every chapter, there's an invitation to take on or try out a practice or an activity or an exercise that helps you do that at an individual level but also at a collective level. And so hopefully there's, yes, something in there for everyone that might, as you say, strike a chord or resonate more. But it starts with even just simply getting to know your water wherever you are, whatever form that takes. Exactly. Yeah. So as I was reading through book. I read a part about where you were surfing when you were about 9, and I was looking for indications of you surfing even earlier than 9. So I'm intrigued. I just want to ask you, when did you start surfing? Because you're quite the fan, aren't you? Absolutely, yes. So I, yeah, I started— I first stood on a surfboard at the age of 4, and I was born into— both my parents surfed. So yeah, my whole life, pretty much. I don't remember a time before surfing. Surfing. I mean, my previous book, Saltwater in the Blood, um, is much more— I suppose it's like a memoir, but very much looking at that relationship, a lifelong relationship with the sea through surfing, and kind of the lessons learned from that. And how quickly do you think you'll get, um, your children on a board? Have they already been on? Well, we're really lucky we're right here by, by the sea, and in this warm weather, it's definitely, yeah, encouraging them. They love the water, and I think it's really important just to have it I like to, I suppose, to make as great, as positive an experience as possible, but really gently, just like these sort of gentle introductions of getting to know water and play and really encouraging play with it as much as possible. So surfing for me was just another form of play before I went on then to compete and take it on as a, you know, career for a while as a professional surfer. But it still, I think the most important aspect is that play. And it's wonderful for kids to have that relationship, especially with water and the sea and surfing, for example, because it really offers that sense of autonomy and independence and a safe way to take risks. I think what's happening for a lot of kids in their childhood is that we've created a very risk-averse society with kind of serious consequences for young people and children to be able to— I think it's a really important part of their development to be able to take risks and develop their own sense of self-autonomy and confidence and an understanding then of their own particular relationship with the world. And then, yeah, so to have that connection and immersion in nature in that way is also really powerful. But when you're surfing, you can be— obviously you're there with them helping them. But I always remember as a kid being pushed off on a wave on a surfboard, like I was on my own then. It was just like me and the wave. And we had to figure it out. But it was brilliant. So, you know, it's, yeah, it's, it's really wonderful for creating that sense of confidence early on for kids and allowing them to develop their own independence. I think, do you know what, when I first— I've surfed a bit. I'm in no way near anywhere. I'm not good at all, to be honest. I've probably done surfing about 5 times in my life. And one of the things the guy did say, like, oh, I'm scared. What if I fall off? And, you know, You know, something happens and like just intentionally fall off, do something bad so that you can kind of see what happens and you'll realize it really doesn't matter and you'll just kind of figure it out. Oh, it's, it's a very unforgiving sport to learn because you can't slow it down. You can't kind of go to like a beginner zone. It's just, it's all ocean and you get what you get on the day. Um, and you can't slow a wave down to help you kind of until you get the hang of standing up. But I think that's all part of it. Like it's so dynamic and then you're learning more than anything, I suppose, to take the, the wipeout as well and just actually learn to like go with it and not resist it. And so there's, there's probably more to be learned from those moments than anything else. Yeah, definitely. And also, you know, just the whole salt therapy as well. I think I was— I read a part that was talking about the spray therapy and how good that is for you, the healing powers of the salt. I, I actually, I do halo therapy as well. And I don't know whether you've tried that. No, I haven't. Oh, it's when people basically sit on heated loungers and they get this like medical-grade salt that's similar to the salt spray to kind of— for you to take deep breaths and ingest it in to help you in the same way that you would naturally have it happen. They have it in all the posh spas and whatnot, and it's just another way to help people kind of build immunity and resilience, and it's got such incredible healing properties to it. Well, yeah, it's in— because there's amazing research, research being done at, I think, Plymouth Marine Lab are leading one study looking at sea spray aerosols. So we know, like, for example, say with forest bathing and walking in the woods, the trees actually release these aerosols that are really good for our immune system and like so many other things. But it turns out that, say, the, the ocean, um, kinda also does the same thing when waves are breaking, in particular releases these aerosols that are full of, I guess they're also full of all the, I suppose, the bacteria and all life that's in the sea is kind of, there's an imprint of that then in these aerosols that we're breathing in that actually have a real benefit for reducing inflammation in the body and improving our immune system. So we're just starting to kind of understand and learn about that too. It definitely feels limitless. And so something I like to ask all my guests here on Get Booked for Women's and Men's radio station is the 3 top tips on how to try and achieve good mental wellbeing. Yeah, so I think like a lovely place to kind of begin when we're talking about the ocean, kind of a way to connect with it wherever you are is what I call like ocean breath. I actually write about this in, in 50 Things to Do by the Sea. It's one of the things, but you know, simple way to connect with the ocean wherever you are is to consciously breathe. Every second breath we take comes from the ocean, from oxygen released by microscopic plants called phytoplankton. And so we're always connected to the ocean through our breath, which mirrors the ebb and flow of the tide and calms our nervous system. So I think that's definitely a really accessible way to do it. And then if you're in a particular— if you're in sort of a busier, more urban environment, taking a kind of sound bath and listening to water. Is so beneficial. So even if you can't go to a body of water, if you're listening even to a sound like recording of water, because that rhythmic pulse of like breaking waves and moving water has a soothing effect on your brain. And in an increasingly noisy world, that acts as an antidote to the kind of shrill staccato of like traffic and artificial sounds that actually create stress in the body. So that's another way to help. Help calm our nervous systems. And then even so you can get obviously immersed in it and there's all those benefits of like things like wild swimming that we talked about. But even simply like looking at water, I think you probably, it's almost like when you look into the flames of a fire, but water in the sea is so visually stimulating that it actually alters our brainwaves. And according to clinical psychologist Richard Schuster, like watching the sea can change the frequency of our brainwaves. And put us in a more meditative state. So the next time you're at the coast or any body of water, just actively look at it. And even then, beginning to just notice things like the shades and the patterns, how the colors shift. It's just a lovely way to kind of give our brain some downtime as well, and has a calming effect, just kind of observing, taking time to just be with with it. Oh, I think that's absolutely fantastic. I love that. I did actually. I'm a huge fan of snorkeling. Breathe, listen, and look. Yeah, breathe, listen, and look. I think it's fantastic. Um, I have got in trouble a few times. I remember backpacking in Malaysia with my grandma and I, then I was— I went to the Perhentian Islands and just sat there snorkeling for ages, and she kept on warning me to get out, and then eventually I basically just laid there in the water face down with a snorkel on for ages, and I got the most burnt bottom you can imagine. It was ridiculous. Now, honestly, I could chat about this for so much longer, but we're running out of time. Thank you so much, Iskie, for joining us on Get Booked and for chatting to us about Ebb and Flow. And I thoroughly recommend it to all of our to, to get involved and to learn as much as you can. Oh, thank you so much, Hazel. I really enjoyed the conversation. Me too. And if you want to find out more, please pop on to eastgeatbritain.com and you can pop on to Ebb and Flow and find out a little bit more there. Thank you so much for joining us on Get Booked. Coming up next, we have the reading of today's book, Ebb and Flow. Awareness of our fluidity. The water cycle is not some abstract, neatly drawn graph with water moving in a tidy circular process going on somewhere in the background to our human lives. In actuality, It is messy, dynamic, and entangled, with water replenishing, removing, and cleansing our inner fluid systems. We are permeable and our skin is porous, with all the water in our body being replaced 17 times a year. We have something like 30 trillion cells in our body that all need water and movement to communicate with each other to be healthy. As water protector Pat McCabe explained, water is flowing and being filtered through the body of every being, every living thing, and through the consciousness of all life across all time. Our bodies are connected to the watersheds and bodies of water that we live with and move through. All these waters have become part of us, continually cycling through us. 'to feel the sacredness of water, we humans must become fluid and feel our fluidity,' wrote Canadian theologian and psychotherapist Denise Nadeau. 'If we are fluid, we are harder to control and less controlling.' On the beach that November morning, as I moved, I began to sense the water in my body and imagined how it would like to move move, becoming a breaking wave, swaying, rippling seaweed in a rush of tidal water, rising and falling with each breath. Toes tracing circles on the sand. Ankles, knees, pelvis, spine, ribs, shoulders, arms, neck, head, and eyes all followed, spiraling like a moonshell. Moonshells find washed up in the tide line once belonged to sea snails. They are round, glossy, and with a perfect spiral winding outward from the center of the shell. The still point in the eye of the storm. My internal process began to shift, and I felt newly unearthed emotions surfacing from some hidden depth. A dance of contraction and expansion. I'm Hazel Butterfield, and you've been listening to Get Booked for Women's and Men's Radio Station. Catch me here on Women's Radio Station every day of the week at 5 PM, and every Tuesday at 4 PM at Men's Radio Station. You can catch up on previous shows at womensradiostation.com. Www.louisejames.com/shows/getbooked. Thank you so much for joining me today on Get Booked, and enjoy the rest of your day. To finish off with today, we're going to have a little bit of a look back at one of my favourite shows, chatting to the author Jane Hennigan about her dystopian novel Moths. I was completely enthralled by this book. I thought it was absolutely fantastic, and I loved interviewing her for Get Booked. I hope you enjoy it too. Please remember, you can catch up on all full shows on the women's radio station SoundCloud. Right now, time on Get Booked to discuss Moths with today's author Jane Hennigan. And I really don't know where to start with this one. It's such a clever and introspective fictional look at a world in which men had to be contained and sedated for their own safety, leaving women in charge, following on from a plague of moths carrying an infection that attacks the male central nervous system, rendering them a blue where they die pretty quickly, or affecting their whole psyche that turns them into prolifically violent and murderous manics. However, we still need to procreate to keep humanity alive. The men need to be cared for, both those infected and those from being infected. Affected. 40 years on and the world is evolving. Anyone younger than 40 has no real understanding of how it was before. It is inconceivable that these terrified men, protected in confinement with limited knowledge and uses, how they could ever rule the world. Could a potential vaccine be the answer? Decisions need to be made about what best for everyone's futures. Those originally infected are dying off. The only men left are those born since the pandemic that no longer have inherent ideas of superiority or expectation, quite importantly. So many complex ideas, opinions, and basic human rights issues to be addressed, and quite frankly, this book is brilliantly written. Jane, thank you for joining us on Get Booked to discuss Moths. I can't wait to get started. Well, thank you very much for having me. Yes, that's a pretty comprehensive, um, description you've just done there. Thank you. Yeah, I was so absorbed in the book, and as I said a little bit off air, I kind of spent a couple of weeks just getting really angry with men, uh, which it's not the aim, but it's just that whole— we get angry when we've got complex feelings about Well, anything and everything. Um, the book is fantastic. Why don't you kick off by telling us a little bit about yourself? Oh, okay. Uh, so I am— so I've been writing probably about 10 to 15 years. Yeah. Um, before that I was in marketing, and then I went from marketing— I worked in marketing for about 15 years, and then I was a teacher for 6 years, an English teacher for 6 years. And, and then I went and did a master's in creative writing at University of Surrey. And then kind of the pandemic hit, and I was, I was toying with the idea of giving up teaching at that point anyway. And I had, during my master's, started to write a number of novels. I had written a couple of novels before that as well, and and I was writing Moths during the pandemic, although I had started writing Moths before the pandemic hit. And yeah, I decided to give it a go. I decided to stop teaching. There were other things happening in my life at the time as well. There were sort of relatives that needed looking after and such like, which didn't work with kind of with being a teacher. Life gets in the way. Exactly. And it kind of gave me the confidence actually to come out of teaching and to start writing in earnest. And yeah, then, yeah, so that's basically where I got to. And then I started writing Moths as part of my master's MA in creative writing, and it went down well. It went down really well at the kind of in the workshops, I got a lot of encouragement. I met some fantastic writing friends whilst I was on the Masters as well, and they were a huge encouragement to me, and we would swap work quite often, and it just kept the focus on writing. And yeah, so I ended up writing Moths. I can imagine if you started before COVID-19 and then continued afterwards, I guess that changed your tack a little bit because you actually had real-time knowledge of how certain pandemics affect how we live. I mean, these dystopian novels, they're getting increasingly scarier due to how pandemic research is going. They're not completely inconceivable. We've seen the effects of COVID-19, and The Last of Us on Sky Atlantic or Sky something or other is based on factual evidence of a disaster that could actually happen. So these novels, we kind of, as I said before, when I was getting a little bit kind of stressed but so engrossed when I was reading it because it just stirs so much inside of you. You really kind of get into the psyche and you cover so many different viewpoints. So well. I mean, the hugest congratulations on writing the book. And I know you released it— was it last year? And then it's got picked up again, and you've been, you've been taken on by an agent, and it's getting re-released with slight changes, and I've just been released. Am I correct? Yes. So, um, well, your first point, uh, when I— so writing a pandemic before a pandemic and writing a pandemic during a pandemic are very, very different things. And I actually had to take 6 months away from writing it in the actual pandemic, because there's something ghoulish about writing a pandemic when you're surrounded by the effects of, you know, of that, of a disease that is, you know, that is making people ill and killing people. So I could, so for a long time, I just couldn't. I mean, I imagine it's the same for a lot of people in the pandemic as well. For a long time, I couldn't really concentrate on very much except just getting through the next day and not thinking too deeply about anything. And I definitely wasn't going to think too deeply about a story I was writing about a pandemic. So, actually, as it happened, I'd written most of the story by the time the pandemic hit. Later on in the pandemic, when it— weird to say— it kind of normalized a bit, then I went back to editing and changing some of the parts of the novel in line with what I now know— knew how the government might react, how other countries might react. What the fear was like. There is a lot of fear in the book, and that fear comes from the actual fear that I was feeling during the pandemic. So yeah, there is a big difference between the fantasy of a pandemic and the reality of a pandemic. One you can write excitedly into the, you know, and just carry on with it. The other one you think very carefully about the reality of it. So yeah, it did change the novel. And yeah, well, I think also moths, it is not like COVID-19. We will look back on COVID-19 in 40 years and it's, you know, it's a bit like SARS. We get over it. We'll probably slightly change the way we do things, but we're not locking up people and changing the whole way that life is kind of run. It's very different to COVID-19, but it's still kind of helping us understand, you know, what could happen with these slightly more dangerous pandemics. I mean, have you watched The Last of Us? I guess that's something that's— I absolutely loved The Last of Us. I consumed every episode. It is the exact sort of thing I love. So yeah, I thought it was brilliant. I loved it. I mean, obviously terrifying. But yeah, I thoroughly enjoyed, and I will watch any, I will watch any disaster movie. I will watch any pandemic kind of TV series. I was a big fan of The Walking Dead, right up, you know, I stuck with it right up to the end. I, yeah, so I guess also the book is a kind of reaction to many of the kind of dystopian stories and apocalyptic stories that I've read, you know, throughout my life. So if I was going to write a story, it was, you know, it was probably going to be in that area, right? Yeah, no, fair enough. And of course, the two timelines as well. So the second timeline was quite easy to write, um, in the pandemic because it, as you say, it's not a reaction, it's not a reflection of reality. It's a very different world. I wrote about a very different world. Um, but the first timeline, i.e., the past when the pandemic actually hits, um, then that story was very difficult to Right. What really got to me is if it was the other way round and if it affected the women's central nervous system and how the men would react. And that sent me off spiraling in so many different ways because of how the men had to be contained. If women were contained in the same way, I think that puts a lot of fear into everybody. Body. I think you wrote it quite sympathetically with a lot of thought taken and put into how they were treated and how the system, the new system, had to be managed. Obviously, obviously there's lots of controversial issues with 40 years on, and especially as all the old manics are kind of dying out and you're, you're protecting all the, the new men from even contracting the disease or the virus. Um, but obviously the concept of a vaccine, which can throw so many issues as to what can be controlled— the only reason that people are walking around safe is because it was highly controlled, and if you no longer have that control, chaos can ensue. I think the story is riddled with tough and controversial viewpoints. Do you have a favorite? So, um, so this idea that, um, what will happen when this vaccine— you know, if this vaccine— when this vaccine— spoiler alert, there's a vaccine— uh, when this vaccine comes out, whether women will want women will want men to come back into society. What will happen then? Will the kind of gender power dynamics revert to what they were, or will they continue as they are? So these are, you know, questions that I absolutely love to think about. What does gender mean when there is, you know, when men are locked away and is in the society, in society, there is just the one gender to, to kind of on display, as it were. So these are, these are questions that I, I really enjoyed looking at in the book. I also had a bit of fun with the idea of just flipping the script a little and, you know, having men treated basically like 1950s housewives. They were, they were, that is kind of the, the vibe I was getting. They, they are patronized and they are seen as weaker and and just not seen as, as intelligent as the women. Well, if you're constantly told that you're not as intelligent and you are the weaker sex, eventually you're going to believe it if you've never known any different, right? Absolutely, yeah. And if you have no, um, examples of strong, uh, male, uh, figureheads or leaders, uh, then of course they're not going to be able to assimilate any kind of a positive male role model. So they would feel like that at that point. Yeah, so that was me kind of, you know, playing with the— with notions, with current notions of gender as well.