My academic background is in Anthropology but I spent most of my time after my first degree working as a freelance musician leading song-writing workshops in schools, with young offenders and at risk youth.

The head-heart-hand approach of the Human Ecology MSc was a great attraction for me.  I was inspired by the joined-upness of the programme and integration of spirituality, activism and science alongside more creative means of expression and communication.  Oh, and the lure of the Highlands and promise of some time out in the wild was an added incentive!

Now, as a graduate of the course, I have recently started presenting a programme for National Geographic which involves travelling through some pretty remote and wild landscapes presenting stories on aspects of the ecology, anthropology and history of the area.  We are heading to the Northern Territories of Australia to film in Aboriginal areas around Darwin in October 2008.

During the making of the programmes we work with a range of local people including scientists, musicians, historians and members of the community who join us along the way.  Very often the communities we engage with are completely self-sufficient, living the human ecology mantra out of a combination of necessity and poverty. 

One of the joys of this job is learning how to communicate with people when language is not an option.  When we were filming out with the Bassari people in Senegal we had to use two translators just to get to French!  After a while conversation was getting so laboured that we abandoned the formal route and managed to have an amazing time basically just laughing and dancing with each other.  I guess from that experience I felt the power of open-heartedness alone to build community and understanding.

The landscapes we film in inspire me beyond measure.  It is humbling and terrifying to stand at the foot of an active volcano and the stories of people who live in such environments are very often moving tributes to the strength of the human spirit.  It’s exciting too to experience nature at its most abundant – stepping into a rainforest is like some delicious sensory feast and I am hugely grateful to have had direct experiences of such wonderful environments. 

The MSc course has helped me in a whole range of different ways.  Our work on community and spirituality has helped me understand how, though our interconnection with the natural world we are given the tools to save it. The emphasis on Nonviolent Communication and Maslow’s work on human need was eye-opening, both on a personal level and in terms of relating to people from different cultures.  I feel that as well as giving me a sound scientific grounding in the issues that concern human ecologists, it also nurtured the necessary inner transformation that helped me take the leap into situations and experiences that demand a humble, fearless joy.  This journey will probably last a lifetime but the course has spread the possibility of taking that journey under my feet.