Episode 110: Wallace J. Nichols - Blue Mind

Stefan Van Norden

Welcome to Nature Revisited, the podcast. My name is Stefan Van Norden, and on this episode we are pleased to have Wallace J Nichols, the author of the bestselling book Blue Mind and the founder of Ocean Revolution. Wallace joins us to talk about the importance of all things water.

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Stefan Van Norden

Wallace, Welcome to Nature Revisited. As your national bestselling book Blue Mind approaches its 10th anniversary. I would like to thank you for joining me to talk about all things blue mind, all things water. It's a pleasure to have you here.

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Wallace J Nichols

It's my honor. This is a great occasion to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the publication of Blue Mind and talk about that with you.

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Stefan Van Norden

Can we start by you sharing some of your early memories that shaped your deep relationship with water?

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Wallace J Nichols

I think like a lot of kids, I just loved being in the water, Whether it was a pool or a lake or an ocean. When I was a kid, I was adopted. And so I had big questions about everything. And I was a bit of an introvert and stuttered. And so that combination, the result of that was that I just felt better in the water.

00;02;08;18 - 00;02;40;21

Wallace J Nichols

I felt it was quieter. I felt like I was home. And some of those those big questions faded and I didn't stutter because people don't talk to you underwater. So the more time I spent underwater, the better I felt. But that led directly to two things. One, I became a marine biologist and I dove deeply into this idea of blew my mind, which did not have a name for, you know, in the early days.

00;02;40;24 - 00;03;08;28

Wallace J Nichols

I just felt better near the water, in the water, under the water, and got curious about why. And that's led to this inquiry into blue mind. The water is the source of life and biodiversity covers most of the planet, regulates our climate. But that's not why I love it. Really. Why I love water so much is because it makes me feel good.

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Wallace J Nichols

It makes me feel alive. It boosts my creativity. It connects me to the people I love, where I celebrate. It's actually where I go to grieve and mourn. That really is why I love water.

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Stefan Van Norden

So before we talk more about that personal relationship that we all can have with water. Talk a little bit about that other side, its physical importance.

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Wallace J Nichols

The reality of the physical importance of water as the water is the matrix of life on earth and it's unique in the universe. I mean, we're NASA's scientists are searching the universe for more earth like planets and water is the signal. GW Find the water. Follow the water is their mantra. You know, here on Earth, the original blue planet.

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Wallace J Nichols

From our perspective, it is the source of all life. If you're walking through a forest, that forest is up to 90% water. So water is the source of life. It keeps us alive. We are water based beings. We all spent the first 9.21 months of our lives underwater, in the dark, in our own private oceans called mom. And that is true for all of our fellow mammals.

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Wallace J Nichols

This connection to water is no surprise.

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Stefan Van Norden

You published Blue Mind almost ten years ago. How is the water?

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Wallace J Nichols

That's a huge question. As you know, results vary tremendously. We've got places where over the past decade, people have been hard at work. They have, in fact, protected and restored waterways. The water quality is improving, the biodiversity is increasing, the pollution is decreasing. We've also got places that are quite the opposite where things perhaps have gotten worse. So it's a it's a mixed bag.

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Wallace J Nichols

I think as this idea that water is is valuable economically and ecologically, but also emotionally, as this idea continues to grow and expand, it will lead to these regenerative feedback loops where we protect and restore more lakes and more rivers and more parts of the ocean and take better care of the water we drink. And years after publishing gloom, I have seen it in action.

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Wallace J Nichols

What We have seen more people getting in the water. The value of being by the water goes up. Communities are transformed when a river goes from being toxic to even moderately healthy as blue mind idea. It approaches the environmental crisis, but it also approaches the public health crisis that we have, especially the mental health crisis. And when you bring bring back your water and your community, you get this ecological boom.

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Wallace J Nichols

You get also an economic boom and you get an emotional wellbeing boom where that occurs. That's what we see.

00;06;33;21 - 00;06;42;16

Stefan Van Norden

So what was the factor that played in your writing the book and how long did it take to write it?

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Wallace J Nichols

The factors name it. Dr. Oliver Sacks I hoped that he would write a book about neuroscience, Neuropsychology in water, and I pitched the idea to him and he was an intellectual powerhouse. One of the most interesting humans I have known. Brilliant writer, brilliant neurologist, water lover, music lover. I'm curious about everything and I dream that he would write this book that I wanted to read about our brain on water.

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Wallace J Nichols

And I thought he could write this book and I could feed him some research. And when I pitched the idea to him, he said, It's a fine idea. You do it. I did not take that as a suggestion or a nudge. I took it as a command and five years later I brought him, blew my mind. But I would say very explicitly that I wanted to read Blue Mind.

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Wallace J Nichols

I did not want to write it. I wanted him to write it. And that didn't happen. Fortunately, I wrote it and he read it. So that's how it happened. It did take those five years. I'll take it back to Dr. Oliver Sacks, who said, You do it.

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Stefan Van Norden

So. So what does the brain on water look like?

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Wallace J Nichols

Best way to approach that question is to start with what I call red mode. And red mind is our new normal. It is our response to the built environment separate from nature that are increasingly full of screens and information and technology. We're busy, we're distracted, we're falling behind. With the increase of technology and the ease of all of the information that comes to us.

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Wallace J Nichols

You press the button and get food delivered. You press the button, the car picks you up. It's harder and harder to shut that off. So that red mind mode produces the high level of stress. That level of stress and anxiety will will break you down at the cellular level. We know that. And when that happens, you go into gray mind.

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Wallace J Nichols

Gray mind, as is your body and your mind saying, we're done. You've you've you've burned the midnight candle too many times. Can't handle it anymore. And a lot of people are there. Blue mind is a way for us to calm and reconnect and reset and restore and water is the shortcut. You feel more one with yourself, one with each other, the people you care about, people you work with, and what with our environment, With our planet.

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Wallace J Nichols

The goal here is to make blue mind this concept common knowledge and common practice, because it does have these public health benefits for our physical, mental and our emotional well-being. Yeah.

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Stefan Van Norden

So talk a little bit about how there may have been a time when the spirit of the water, which was so important to a lot of indigenous cultures. What we can learn from from those cultures.

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Wallace J Nichols

Yeah, it's a brilliant question because nothing that we're talking about with regard to Blue Mind is new. What's new is there's some modern science that says, Hell yeah, that's right. Every culture, every spiritual tradition, and every sacred text on earth since the beginning of recorded history talks about blue might not use that terminology, but the idea that water has a spiritual role in our lives that is critical really is nothing new.

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Wallace J Nichols

To be really clear to your point, there is not a new idea by any means. That kind of sentiment is echoed throughout all sacred texts, throughout all human history, throughout all cultures.

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Stefan Van Norden

Share some of the incredible ways that water can serve as healer, such as surfing and other activities.

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Wallace J Nichols

Yeah, let me give you I'll give you a story that depicts that. It's a guy named Bobby Layne who's become a friend. He is a veteran Marine, served in Afghanistan, and he returned with some traumatic brain injury. I would say the poster guy for post-traumatic stress. He was medicating with pharmaceuticals, but also self-medicating with drugs, alcohol. And in fact, he was feeling like he didn't really want to live any longer as he was mentally not well.

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Wallace J Nichols

The course of treatment was not fixing much and was ready to check out. He got involved in a program offered by Operation Surf Surf Therapy Program cut his third wave, stood up on his board, and really felt different. And he felt like he wanted to live. Not only did he want to live, the thoughts on that wave went so far to convince him that he not only wanted to live, but you wanted to share this feeling with his fellow veterans.

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Wallace J Nichols

And he is just one example of how the mind can be put into action. I don't want to overstate any of this post-traumatic stress, anxiety, burnout, or serious, quite heavy. Not to be messed around with. I'm not suggesting drop all your treatment and jump in the ocean and grab a surfboard. But if you do, it will help and it will be a powerful supplement to the other things that may also be working for you.

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Wallace J Nichols

So we see it working clinically. Research is has been unfolding and being published. Float therapy, surf therapy, aquatic therapy of all kinds. Free diving, Scuba diving. Walking by the water, paddling, sailing. All these different modalities are being used therapeutically.

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Stefan Van Norden

Can you share with us some of the ways that you personally have become more connected with water over the years?

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Wallace J Nichols

Know, suffice it to say, we've all had a challenging handful of years. During the pandemic, my mom succumbed to dementia. She passed after a long, long decline and we lost our home in a wildfire right in the middle of the pandemic. So I think we all can relate to those extra stressors on top of the background stress of a global pandemic.

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Wallace J Nichols

And I remember after the fire, you know, people were kind of like, okay, blue Maine guys, let's see if your theory works. All the extra stress that that caused that in our our household and our our family and my kids, our relationships really, really put it to the test for me. I leaned more heavily on this blue mind idea than ever in my life.

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Wallace J Nichols

Made it really a priority to be in the water daily in some way, whether it was a creek or a cold plunge or ideally an ocean. And it became clear to me that my emotional health was challenged and I was struggling with the reality of my own life. Sure, I had written a book about one of the ways that the power through that thing to heal yourself.

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Wallace J Nichols

I took it up a notch. I've always been a water lover and water person and a practitioner by in the face of these new circumstances and heartbreak, I had to really dig into it. Here I am talking to you. I used to mind virtually daily, whenever I need an extra boost in my water time to accommodate it.

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Stefan Van Norden

And your book blew, mind you quote, the beginning of Moby Dick. What are some of the other ways that Melville exemplifies the glory and the mystery of the watery part of the planet?

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Wallace J Nichols

You know that that book is the original blue book and page one. And what he writes is when he's healing November in his soul, which to me is gray mind. We're coming up on November here. And, you know, the days get shorter. The leaves of all fallen in certain parts of the world might be a little cloudier, a little rainier, a little cooler.

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Wallace J Nichols

And so he says, I feel November in my soul, rather than becoming depressed, becoming an angry person, it's high time to go to see Penguin. He's feeling that gray mind, too much stress, maybe burnt out, some gloom November in his soul. It's high time to get on a boat and go to sea. But not everybody can hop on a boat in November when they're feeling that way.

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Wallace J Nichols

But everybody can practice Blue Mind daily, no matter where you are. He says a lot more about Blue Mind in that epic book. He refers to that idea of the sea as a healer of our emotional well-being. Repeatedly, poetically, we see this idea encoded in literature. Melville's Moby Dick. In poetry, in music and works of art, photography and film.

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Wallace J Nichols

Paintings have made Blue Mind Portable reminded us that this this feeling is real. The science backs it up, but so does the art. When you can't get to the actual water, you can still practice blue mind by bringing up the poetry and the prose and the photography and the art and the music.

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Stefan Van Norden

How can people who may not have easy access to rivers, streams or oceans become more connected to water? How can they find a pocket full of ocean so.

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Wallace J Nichols

Let's start with the wild water from wherever you're sitting right now. It may be easy or it may be moderately difficult or maybe extremely effortful to get from where you're sitting to the water. So lucky you. If it's easy, you should do that as often as possible. It may be that you're wild water is in bad shape, that it needs help, that it needs some water.

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Wallace J Nichols

Warriors. Be one of those because it's worth the effort to bring a lake, a river, or a part of the ocean back to life. Make the effort to get to the water that you love that's nearby as often as possible. But sometimes you can't. Sometimes too far. Or to frozen. And the case may be in. In those cases you can lean on your domestic water.

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Wallace J Nichols

Any water that's sort of held in a tube or a tank. Then there's another category. That's the urban water. So in your town, there may be a fountain that you can visit. So it's not quite the wild water. It's not the Niagara Falls. It's not the raging river or the big ocean, but it still holds that power of blue mind just sitting by a fountain or walking along an urban waterfront.

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Wallace J Nichols

This is lovely and therapeutic. Next category that we mentioned earlier is virtual water, and that's any depiction of water where water is in fact not present. So art, literature, poetry, music, photography, film or recording of water, the last category is imaginary water, and that's the water that you see and hear and taste and smell when you close your eyes and maybe your favorite water, maybe the water of your childhood and maybe some place you visited yesterday that made an impression, maybe from a recent vacation or a trip.

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Wallace J Nichols

We can always rely on or our imagination and our memories, which emphasizes the importance of making those memories. When you have the opportunity, when you're at the water, you love that you've traveled to pay close attention and attention to the way it sounds, in the way it looks at the weather, light bounces and what's living in it and the way it tastes and smells.

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Wallace J Nichols

So those are the five forms wild, domestic, urban, virtual and imaginary. The five forms of water that we can utilize and actively mind every day. I suggest that you try to do that every day in some form. This is not an insignificant suggestion. We are water based beings on a water based planet with a whole bunch of red mind and gray mind seeping in.

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Stefan Van Norden

So how do you see the future of water, both environmentally and culturally?

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Wallace J Nichols

I think there is a massive opportunity right now to take these ideas that we've been discussing and make them common knowledge and common practice for a billion people. I think when we start teaching Blue Mind in our schools to school kids, high schools and colleges to grad students, when we start teaching Blue Maine to nursing students, health professionals and educators, we'll start to see really interesting changes to that value equation around water will shift the movement to protect and restore and value.

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Wallace J Nichols

Water will grow. What we're seeing already is that when water is properly valued for all its benefits, there's a higher priority. Communities invest more in the protection and restoration of the water, and then the benefits flow. Economically, ecologically and emotionally. There's a bigger movement to take care of water quality and aquatic ecology. When people recognize the full, the full benefits.

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Wallace J Nichols

And then there's a there's sort of a policy political shift that I think can occur when we say the people who serve us daily, the first responders, the people on the frontline, the nurses, the teachers, the EMT, the police, the firefighters who live incredibly stressful, stressful lives because they run towards danger on our behalf and they show up early for us.

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Wallace J Nichols

If those people are avoiding burnout by practicing blue mode, that's it. That's a shift. That's a really interesting story. And I think that's that's kind of that really is fascinating to me to see how the storytelling can shift and that can lead to stronger policies, better protections, restoration of both ourselves and our water and nature and healthier communities.

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Wallace J Nichols

In my lifetime, there's never been a moment when we needed it more.

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Stefan Van Norden

So finally, share with us a million blue marbles.

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Wallace J Nichols

If I could put a million blue marbles right into your hands right now, you become completely overwhelmed. That's a lot of marbles. But we have we have shared over a million blue marbles around the world. They're glass, marbles. They're recycled glass. They're cobalt blue. If you look through them, they're some they're translucent. That simple object is a gesture of gratitude.

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Wallace J Nichols

Let me share them. But when you hold it out at arm's length that it looks like what we look like as a planet from a million miles away. So basically, it's a way to say, let's all be astronauts for a minute. And then every astronaut that has looked back on earth has had something called the overview effect, which is a wave of humility, of awe and wonder that shifts them.

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Wallace J Nichols

Every astronaut describes it differently. But the takeaway is when you get to see us, our home from that place, it's a spiritual experience that doesn't go away. So we share these blue marbles kind of as a gesture, a recognition of the overview effect. Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot that marble is a reminder that we live on a finite water based planet where everything we do matters.

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Wallace J Nichols

And we ask people if they've received a marble to reflect on that, but then to carry it and pass it on to someone and to share some version of this story with the person that they pass it to that they want to express gratitude to. Next week I'll be at the University of Rhode Island giving a keynote, and they'll be 800th marbles given to the faculty and students.

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Wallace J Nichols

And we'll have this conversation. And then those people will take their marbles and carry them until they pass them on The blue marble, it's kind of become the symbol for this, this blue mind conversation. And and as you said, the last chapter describes describes what I've just said in more detail. If this conversation is resonating and you're thinking, yeah, I get it, and water is important to me and you're practicing Blue Mind, that's great.

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Wallace J Nichols

And I would encourage you to take someone with you that needs it. I'd be someone, you know, peripherally or could be a close loved one. Get them, grab them, jump in the water with them. That would be my next level of this message. Understanding good mind, practicing it and then sharing it with those who need it most. A lot of people who need it.

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Wallace J Nichols

And so let's let's all be the person who brings it to those who need it most.

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Stefan Van Norden

I hope you enjoyed this episode of Nature Revisited with the Wallace J. Nichols, and if you haven't already read Blue Mind that you take the time to do so. If you enjoyed this episode, please share with family, friends and colleagues. You can follow Nature Revisited on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, or our website NoordenProductions.com. The Music for Nature Revisited is Buzzin' Fly by Tim Buckley.

00;27;58;27 - 00;28;16;28

Stefan Van Norden

Nature Revisited is produced by Stephane Van Norden and Charles Geoghegan, and I hope you'll join me for the next edition of Nature Revisited. And in the meantime, please remember we are nature.

Episode 107: Rue Mapp - Outdoor Afro

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Stefan Van Norden

Welcome to Nature Revisited, the podcast. Thank you for joining me. My name is Stefan Van Norden. And on this episode we are featuring Rue Map and Outdoor Afro. Rue Map is a designer and collaborator, entrepreneur and author. Rue founded the organization Outdoor Afro in 2009 as a place where black people and nature meet. She is also the author of the book Nature Swagger - Stories and Visions of Black Joy in the Outdoors.

00;01;03;19 - 00;01;25;08

Stefan Van Norden

Rue joins me from her home in the Bay Area to talk about her amazing journey and why it is important that we share our experiences in relationship with nature with others.

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Stefan Van Norden

So, Rue, thank you so much for joining me on Nature Revisited today. I have been looking forward to learning more about you and Outdoor Afro, the organization you started and your book, Nature Swagger. Let's start in Oakland, California, which is the childhood home of Jack London. I believe you were raised there and that you still live there. Is that where you first heard your call of the wild?

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Rue Mapp

Oh, that's a beautiful metaphor. The respect and historical legacy of Jack London is deeply felt throughout Oakland and memorialized at Jack London Square, where I spent many of my formative years and adult years with family and friends enjoying that waterfront area. And yes, I did live in Oakland all my young adulthood from the time I was born until I was 18.

00;02;29;29 - 00;02;57;01

Rue Mapp

I moved all around the Bay Area and Overland is now in the North Bay. I just really appreciate the legacy left in me of what Oakland's all about is diversity of people, of landscapes, and just how it was easy to immerse myself in so many different types of culture cultures as well as nature experiences.

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Stefan Van Norden

So how important was nature to you growing up?

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Rue Mapp

I would say that in these times we live in now, like nature is a call out, something that I feel is more of an intentional pursuit, given that I grew up in the seventies and eighties. We were outside playing all the time, so being outside, exploring our natural surroundings, we had this really cool, undeveloped area that we called the dead end in our neighborhood.

00;03;29;27 - 00;03;55;18

Rue Mapp

It was full of all kinds of mystery and adventure and creativity. We built tree houses. We formed walking paths. We were able to oversee a regional park that had horse trails, and we're able to see those horses. We were able to see deer and other wildlife. This area in particular where I lived in the Oakland Hills, it was this really beautiful intersection between urban and wild.

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Rue Mapp

And I think that's something people don't recognize about Oakland when they imagine what it is in their imaginations. We think about an urban place. Oakland has such an incredible amount of wild spaces and natural landscapes that are just minutes away from where most people live. And I was fortunate to live in an area that was heavily wooded, not as developed or dense.

00;04;23;13 - 00;04;32;08

Rue Mapp

And so the connection to being in nature was as simple as going outside to play with my friends.

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Stefan Van Norden

And what were some of the other activities you participated in?

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Rue Mapp

So my mom was a seamstress and she had a sewing room that was from floor to ceiling on three sides of fabrics and notions. Notions meaning like buttons and all the zippers and all the things you need to really finish a garment. And she had an ironing board that was permanently up and installed and a sewing table and sewing machine.

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Rue Mapp

And it was almost like walking into a fabric store. And she was there day in and day out, making clothing for people in the community, very much involved with the church and was president of the sewing circle there. And I just took a natural interest in it because as a child, she was there during the day when I would come home from school, she made her sewing.

00;05;23;18 - 00;05;44;18

Rue Mapp

So it was really easy to pick up having so many materials at my disposal to experiment with. And the very first thing that I made on my own was a life sized doll. Seven years old was the first time that I actually was trusted to get on the machine. And so something by machine. And it was a life sized doll.

00;05;44;20 - 00;06;09;08

Rue Mapp

Just a couple years after that, going into the fifth grade, I was able to make the majority of my school clothes. Later in high school, I was making my prom dresses and even helping make prom dresses for others. And it evolved from there with getting more involved with the fashion and design community and then also at the same time, you know, I really love cooking.

00;06;09;08 - 00;06;39;26

Rue Mapp

And and so it was a really good time to not only be creative, but also convert that creative spirit into something that was really useful in my life around the time I was learning to sew and hands on with life, I started a journal in a little Hello Kitty diary. It was a natural to really start chronicling my experiences, and particularly my experiences in nature.

00;06;39;28 - 00;06;52;20

Stefan Van Norden

So what did you see? And maybe you still do see that made you want to encourage more people, particularly the African-American community, to spend more time in nature?

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Rue Mapp

I think it would be very important to remind people that in addition to my time in Oakland as a child in nature, we had a family ranch about about 100 miles north of Oakland, and that's where I was able to go deeper in my nature experiences with being on a hobby ranch where we had cows and pigs and a nearby creek.

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Rue Mapp

We would invite tons of family over for holidays and other milestone opportunities. There would just be this immersion of community nature and wonder and exploration that brought me this comfort. I sought to recreate or be a part of experiences like that through the girl Scouts, later through becoming an Outward Bound student. I found that once I got away from the city and away from the people who I already knew, that there was a whole world of folks out there who were not engaged, as maybe they had once been, maybe a couple of generations ago.

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Rue Mapp

And were missing out. They were missing out on all of this beauty, all of this connection, all of this sense of belonging to something bigger. I wanted to foster the opportunity for that to happen for more people, and particularly for the black community.

00;08;12;29 - 00;08;17;05

Stefan Van Norden

So when did you first get the idea for Outdoor Afro?

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Rue Mapp

I got the idea for outdoor Afro, like really in a moment of revelation. I was at this milestone moment where I completed a long neglected undergraduate degree. I had three young children who I was raising at the same time as as a divorced mother was thinking about, like, what is it that I really want to do next? And I had a mentor just say, you know, with time and money, we're not an issue.

00;08;45;29 - 00;09;15;15

Rue Mapp

What would you do? And, you know, there's just like that one question that became the spark that lit up everything that I had been doing and practicing in plain sight that I felt was true and needed to be amplified in my life in a real way. And I just flippantly said, Well, I'd probably start a website to reconnect more black people to the outdoors.

00;09;15;17 - 00;09;41;15

Rue Mapp

After that, it was this clear focus, like this navigational north. Within two weeks I picked up a Google template and you could just grab one and start writing. And I was off to the races writing about my experience growing up in the outdoors, making connections with others, what it meant to me, and what the vision I had for more people to have those experiences.

00;09;41;17 - 00;10;13;04

Rue Mapp

The momentum around that conversation in 2009 that was really at the dawn of social media was fairly cutting edge, was reflecting back to people the narrative that they weren't seeing or hearing about and that was a vision of black people in the outdoors as strong, beautiful and free magazines that highlighted outdoor experiences at that time and before really weren't telling the story of black people as active participants with agency in those stories.

00;10;13;06 - 00;10;22;02

Rue Mapp

And I knew from my experience growing up that there was just a whole chunk of that American story that was missing.

00;10;22;04 - 00;10;28;18

Stefan Van Norden

So you very kind of formulated it. But what what is the mission?

00;10;28;20 - 00;11;04;14

Rue Mapp

The mission of Outdoor Afro is to celebrate and inspire black connections and leadership in the outdoors. And what I mean by celebrate and inspire it, it really is about acknowledge seeing what's already there. And then connection refers back to the relationships that I know are fostered and leadership refers to not just structured leadership that you might find in an outdoor recreation program, although that is one part of what outdoor Afro grew into.

00;11;04;15 - 00;11;32;07

Rue Mapp

Being able to develop is also about the leadership in the outdoors of everyday people and restoring that sense of leadership and confidence. My role models and the people who influenced me the most, my pursuits in the outdoors, they were people who were right in my own family. It was it was my parents. It was the uncles and aunties and people in my sphere of influence.

00;11;32;10 - 00;11;52;27

Rue Mapp

For me, it's been about like, Hey, let's remember who we are. Let's remember that anybody can be a leader in the outdoors. We all have people in our lives, no matter what your hue, who you can influence to get connected to the outdoors. Outdoor experiences are the kind of thing that you don't need to be an expert to bring someone along.

00;11;52;29 - 00;12;13;08

Rue Mapp

If you just know a little bit more, you can bring someone along with you with that little bit more of knowledge and so kind of help more people see their own agency and opportunity to get more people connected to something that helps them to care more for others as well as care for our planet.

00;12;13;10 - 00;12;21;09

Stefan Van Norden

So what are some of the programs that you have and the ways that those programs are fulfilling your mission?

00;12;21;11 - 00;12;50;28

Rue Mapp

Outdoor Afro began, and I believe continues to be this kind of song of my heart, a song of my own journey of becoming. I have been thankful to be able to share that opportunity with more people who have had similar experiences. The stories are long of people who have found communities or other people friendships that they may not have had before.

00;12;51;00 - 00;13;15;22

Rue Mapp

That has really been a joy to see happen just naturally, because nature allows us the space to do that. And then the other piece is the programmatic expression of outdoor afro that began really as a start up exploration of how I could take all the things that I was learning about getting people into the outdoors and share that model with others.

00;13;15;22 - 00;13;47;17

Rue Mapp

And in 2012 to 2013, I pulled together like about a dozen people and I was like, Hey, let's make an outdoor Afro leadership team. Let me share with you everything that I've learned, and then you take that learning back to your communities and help more people in your community get into the outdoors so they're able to help not only amplify the mission, but also be catalysts for the kind of connection and learning that has always been at the heart of outdoor afro.

00;13;47;24 - 00;14;18;05

Rue Mapp

And then on top of that, in 2019, we decided because we heard many, many stories, that black children were drowning at seven times the rate of white children in the same age group. This is not only a public health crisis. We had this generational loss of knowing how to swim that has persisted and has given way to these really alarming statistics.

00;14;18;08 - 00;14;43;24

Rue Mapp

The other important piece is, is that if people don't know how to swim. That really cut you off from a whole bunch of opportunities to be connected to water. You're not going to ease into a tippy kayak. You're not going to put a pole in a lake and you're not going to care about plastic in the ocean. If your relationship with water is one that is filled with fear or even terror.

00;14;43;27 - 00;15;08;13

Rue Mapp

And so we decided back in 2019 that we were going to teach every child in our sphere of influence how to swim what I call babies in the water so that we can usher in a new generation of possibility to learn how to not only swim, but to also save lives and care for our planet in ways that I feel we all should have the opportunity to do.

00;15;08;16 - 00;15;17;16

Stefan Van Norden

So would you like to share any of the other programs? I look in your website, you have an amazing amount of programs and things going on.

00;15;17;18 - 00;16;06;00

Rue Mapp

From 2009 to 2012, I wrote probably 300 blogs that were all about the new narrative. And one of the things that has been clear to me is that we're not just about the transactional program. We're about changing the narrative. And in order to do that is a combination of, you know, amplifying those stories that we support through our funding, but also finding those stories in the community that we can elevate and shine a bright light on given that we have the platform to be able to do that because a lot of outdoor experiences have been happening for a long time, but people haven't either known about them or they haven't been happening at scale.

00;16;06;02 - 00;16;36;15

Rue Mapp

And so we've been able to grow into this dual purpose of curating opportunities that we amplify, but also identifying things that have been happening historically that people might not have known about. One of the most exciting things that I'm happy to share all the time is about the ways that black people were really deliberate and persistent throughout history to find ways to connect with nature.

00;16;36;18 - 00;17;08;03

Rue Mapp

There were places in the face of Jim Crow and exclusion from being able to access parks and public lands, that there were black people who banded together their resources and built places like the Lincoln Hills and Colorado, which was a lodge that allowed people to rest and recreate. There were places like Lake Ivanhoe and Oak Bluffs and Martha's Vineyard, which is still a very popular destination for the black community.

00;17;08;05 - 00;17;30;26

Rue Mapp

And these are places where working class people were going to recreate. So I feel that it's important that people know that one out are accurate. Did not invent black people in the outdoors, that it's been happening, that there's been, in spite of the interruptions in our history in the United States, people still valued it enough to pursue it and invest in it.

00;17;30;29 - 00;18;00;03

Rue Mapp

And it really opens the door for the possibilities we can have for our future. So it is that can do spirit make a way out of no way. We're going to we're going to connect with nature no matter what is really what sits at the heart of outdoor afro and who shoulders I stand on when I think about what's possible for more people and what we can contribute to connectivity benefit for people and planet, but also what it can also mean for our economies.

00;18;00;06 - 00;18;05;24

Stefan Van Norden

So how can people find out more about the work you are doing and outdoor afro?

00;18;05;26 - 00;18;35;28

Rue Mapp

Yeah, Outdoor afro dot org is where you can find all of our blogs, our programs, how you can make a donation and how you could even become a volunteer leader with outdoor Afro. We opened that invitation up to people every year, usually around the end of the year, and we train and develop people to have the skills to get people outside in their own communities.

00;18;36;00 - 00;19;00;25

Rue Mapp

We did a poll before starting the Outdoor Afro Volunteer network in 2012 asking people like, if you want to get outside, like what's in your way? And there were no really concrete reasons why people weren't getting out. They didn't know where to go, what to do. And so safe. They didn't know about wildlife or about welcoming. The biggest reason was time.

00;19;00;25 - 00;19;24;01

Rue Mapp

Like people just didn't quite know how much time they needed to be able to have meaningful outdoor experiences. And so we trained volunteers with those values and barriers in mind so that people can not only get out with us, which is great when they do, but we eventually want people to get out without us.

00;19;24;03 - 00;19;46;20

Stefan Van Norden

So in 2022, you published Nature Swagger, an important book of wonderful stories and visions of black joy in the outdoors. What inspired you to make this book, and were you surprised by all the amazing stories you were able to collect?

00;19;46;22 - 00;20;08;27

Rue Mapp

I would say that book is something I've wanted to do for a while. I was pretty overwhelmed by the idea of doing it. You know, as I mentioned, I've been raising my three kids. I've been nurturing a fledgling organization that felt like a fourth kid. So I didn't really conceptualize what it would take to write a book, but I knew I had a book on my heart in 2020.

00;20;08;29 - 00;20;46;13

Rue Mapp

I just sat down to begin writing my story and collecting the memory of all the different experiences I'd had since starting Outdoor Afro and then beyond. And what took shape quickly was the need to not make it about me, but to amplify the voices of all the people I had gotten to know over the last decade. And so most of the people, I would say almost all except maybe one or two or people I personally knew, who I'd broken bread with, who I'd expeditions with, who were part of our outdoor Afro volunteer network and so on.

00;20;46;15 - 00;21;11;19

Rue Mapp

To me, it was kind of its own symbolic homecoming of bringing all of these different voices and all of their experiences, because being black in the United States is not a monolith. There's all these regional differences and educate national diversity and interest diversity that I wanted to elevate so that people could see themselves. And the book is filled with photographs.

00;21;11;27 - 00;21;31;22

Rue Mapp

So it's not just the stories, but it's also the pictures. It's the inspiration you might get of seeing someone doing something that you've never seen, someone who looks like you doing. These are all folks who I knew, I respected and whose voices I wanted to have a bigger platform to be heard and memorialized forever.

00;21;31;25 - 00;21;38;21

Stefan Van Norden

So I'm wondering if you might share your standing invitation from the book.

00;21;38;23 - 00;22;09;05

Rue Mapp

So my dad was a he was a black man from the South with the most can do way of living I've ever witnessed in my life. But he also equally had a very compelling way of helping people feel welcome and really embodying the spirit of hospitality. And people would come and visit our family ranch and he would say to everybody when they would be about to depart, you know, you you have a standing invitation now.

00;22;09;08 - 00;22;48;09

Rue Mapp

And it was just his southern drawl. It was the sweetest way of basically saying, once you've been invited, you're always welcome. And that's exactly what I saw him do time and time again. And that's the kind of welcoming that is really a part of the heart of Outdoor Afro is helping more people. You know, there's 40 million black people in the United States, and there's there's a huge frontier, if you will, out there of helping people to find that standing invitation to get reconnected to the outdoors for their healing.

00;22;48;09 - 00;22;55;20

Rue Mapp

And quite frankly, for all of our healing and especially for our healing across perceived differences.

00;22;55;22 - 00;23;09;22

Stefan Van Norden

And you're right, nature, swagger is felt with wonderful stories. And I'm wondering if you might just share a few highlights from the book that touched you in a special way.

00;23;09;24 - 00;23;31;17

Rue Mapp

Well, it's a tough one. You know, they're all you know, it's like it's like they're all they're all my children in the sense that it's hard to elevate one over the other. What I really appreciate, just from a semantic point of view, is that we didn't divide the book on, okay, here's the hiking section, here's the biking section, and here's the this and that.

00;23;31;20 - 00;24;08;12

Rue Mapp

And I really wanted to highlight stories that were beyond outdoor recreation to ones that were also about being in an intimate relationship with the outdoors, whether it be gardening or hunting and we don't see stories like that. You know, there's also a long history of the black community farming and getting their own food from the land. And so I'm really proud of how that is a really important part of the book, but also what makes it distinct.

00;24;08;15 - 00;24;29;26

Stefan Van Norden

So we're going to move forward a little bit that more recently you have discovered or rediscovered the connection between hunting and the natural world. What led you to that reconnection and how is hunting part of the Black heritage of the outdoors?

00;24;29;29 - 00;25;06;18

Rue Mapp

You know, my dad was a hunter, as was my mom, actually. I grew up eating all kinds of food. We ate venison, quail, pheasant. We've bashed a lot, so we had fresh fish. I caught my first puppy at four years old. Unfortunately, that tradition died with my parents and uncles. I was really bereft of not being able to eat the variety of foods to be as intimately involved with the life cycle of the animals that we eat and being responsible in a clear way.

00;25;06;20 - 00;25;29;17

Rue Mapp

It was a it was something that I yearned to get back involved with and decided that it was a part of the story that needed to be told about the black experience and as I got connected to my family roots, that this was also part of our story. And it's also a source of pride in our community that I think is worth remembering.

00;25;29;17 - 00;26;01;18

Rue Mapp

And and for those who are willing to learn how to do again. And so I as a side project and through individual mentoring, have helped people learn how to hunt. What people have come to appreciate more and more is the important contribution to conservation that hunting represents to manage populations that would otherwise be at risk of disease. Hunting provides a way of helping those populations stay healthy.

00;26;01;20 - 00;26;30;15

Rue Mapp

So the seasonality and the ability to hunt is a really wonderful way to be in touch with conservation. But also it really is one of those who do. I feel like our taste buds have been desensitized to what things actually taste like. If you're only eating poultry from the supermarket, you're going to get what comes from a feedlot and what I really have loved about hunting is how much it's helped me to appreciate wildlife.

00;26;30;15 - 00;26;56;23

Rue Mapp

And that kind of thing happens to be my favorite activity. It's a very different experience to take that duck that was living wild in the marsh just hours before and be able to pick it down and clean it at home. And when you look at its insides, you see the elements of the marsh. I mean, it's really it is a full circle experience.

00;26;56;23 - 00;27;33;29

Rue Mapp

And then you bring that bring that experience and those stories to the table. And it's cooked in a way that is respectful and honors that life in a very, very different way than than what you can experience from something that you you buy off the shelf. The mindset of hunters is so much about respect, and it starts with safety, you know, respecting people you use, whether it's a bow or firearm or the hook at the end of the line.

00;27;33;29 - 00;28;10;18

Rue Mapp

It's it is so filled with respect and education and people who do hunt and they aim to be good ambassadors of hunting because it preserves the opportunity, obviously. But it also has a really strong conservation ethic. And I, I have never met a hunter who's not also a conservationist like my dad was absolutely a conservationist, but he would have never necessarily have known about the kind of conservation icons that we have.

00;28;10;20 - 00;28;41;06

Rue Mapp

He was a conservationist in his own right in that he was living in the kind of seasonality and harmony and balance around use and extraction that lent itself to a healthy ecosystem on his ranch, you know, as a hunter, because it's so high touch and intimate and consequential. You you can't ignore the conservation value of it and you want to be a part of that.

00;28;41;08 - 00;28;56;14

Stefan Van Norden

So finally, what is some advice that you might give not only to the African American community but to everyone on how to connect better with nature?

00;28;56;16 - 00;29;23;00

Rue Mapp

Well, you know, I think it starts off with really understanding that nature is not someplace over there, that it is something that is at hand and available for everyone. And it's as simple as recognizing the nature. And you we're breathing air that was once rain. We are influenced by the lunar cycle with bodies made up of a majority of water.

00;29;23;03 - 00;29;54;26

Rue Mapp

We are incredibly connected to the seasons and more so if we raise our consciousness around it, we can look out of our kitchen windows and notice the bird species in our backyards. We can grow vegetables on our front porch in containers. There is something for everyone. And then you can take what you know about nature and you can share it with other people and thereby you become a leader in nature.

00;29;54;29 - 00;30;20;00

Rue Mapp

Anyone can be a leader in nature. Think about what you can teach someone who might be children in your sphere of influence. You know, pass that knowledge on.

00;30;20;02 - 00;31;14;20

Stefan Van Norden

I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Rue Mapp and that you take the time to visit the website OutdoorAfro.com and read her book Nature Swagger. I hope you will share Nature Revisited with family, friends and colleagues and that you will follow us on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and our Website, NoordenProductions.com. The Music for Nature Revisited is Tim Buckley, Buzzin Fly. Nature Revisited is produced by Stefan Van Norden and Charles Geoghegan, and I hope you'll join us for our next edition of Nature Revisited.

00;31;14;22 - 00;31;21;08

Stefan Van Norden

And in the meantime, remember, we are nature.