Our Numinous Nature

Jonathan Kruk is a Hudson River Valley author, folklorist & master storyteller best known for his solo performances of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow in the historic, 17th-century church that inspired Washington Irving's Halloween classic.  In his whimsical & hypnotic style, our guest bard recounts a slew of history & regional lore: a Native American Hudson River creation myth; a waterfall's tragic love story between a native maiden & her captive; a paranormal parable to prideful sailors as they pass Thunder Mountain; the Revolutionary War history behind Mother Hulda the witch & the mythic Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow. Jonathan then shares an uncanny personal experience tracking down the grave of The Wandering Leatherman, a mysterious cave-dwelling vagabond from the 1800's.  Towards the end I tell my own story about going into a broken open tomb in an abandoned cemetery, adding to the overall haunted mood of the valley & this exceptional episode.Get tickets to Jonathan's annual "Irving's Legend" solo performance in Tarrytown NY and/or check out his books: Legends and Lore of Sleepy Hollow and the Hudson Valley, and Legends and Lore of the Hudson Highlands. Support Our Numinous Nature on Patreon.Follow Our Numinous Nature & my naturalist illustrations on InstagramCheck out my shop of shirts, prints, and books featuring my artContact: herbaceoushuman@gmail.com

Vin Tabone is the New York film producer of a PBS-aired, two-part documentary on The Hudson River School: a genre of dramatic, mid-19th century landscape paintings depicting the grandeur & the divine in America's wildernesses. We learn about: the main artists in the movement starting with founder Thomas Cole; the reception from New York City critics; their adventuresome travels to jungles, icebergs, Europe & the Wild West; their use of reoccurring symbols such as storm clouds & tree stumps; and the moral & religious messages they strived to convey. Vin shares fond memories of his childhood on the Hudson, seeing the paintings for the first time, & trips to the unspoiled locations. For story time, he reads "The Bewilderment" from Thomas Cole's journal: a blind & dizzying account of being lost in a stormy, black forest. The last section takes a mystery-provoking sharp turn into a handful of Vin's uncanny & paranormal experiences, adding ever more wonderment to the Our Numinous Nature canon.  Aired on PBS & ALL ARTS channel, watch Vin's documentaries The Hudson River School: Part 1: Artistic Pioneers & Part 2: Cultivating a Tradition via Amazon Prime Video. Reference Images:*Thomas Cole, Lake with Dead Trees [1825]*Thomas Cole, Home in the Woods [1847] *Thomas Cole, The Course of Empire  series [1833-1836]*Thomas Cole, The Voyage of Life series [1842] *Frederic Church, Heart of the Andes [1859]*Frederic Church, Niagara [1857] *Albert Bierstadt, The Rocky Mountains, Landers Peak [1863]*Albert Bierstadt, The Last of the Buffalo [1888]*Albert Bierstadt, Mount Corcoran [1876-1887] *Asher Durand, Kindred Spirits [1849]*Jasper Cropsey, Autumn - On the Hudson River [1860]*Martin Johnson Heade, Hummingbird & Passionflowers [1875-1885] *Sanford Gifford, The Mouth of the Shrewsbury River, [1867] Support Our Numinous Nature on Patreon.Follow Our Numinous Nature & my naturalist illustrations on InstagramCheck out my shop of shirts, prints, and books featuring my artContact: herbaceoushuman

Daniel "Firehawk" Abbott of the Eastern Shore's Nanticoke tribe is a prehistoric technologist & the Native American interpreter for Historic Jamestowne. In this extensive & endlessly engaging episode, Daniel paints a picture of what Chesapeake Bay life would have been like, pre-&-early European contact . We hear of: virgin forests; Nanticoke merchants & trade items; agriculture & the migration of crops;  building a traditional longhouse; a muskrat origin story; & the inner workings of the Powhatan chiefdom from taxes to raiding. When story time rolls around, Daniel recounts an incredibly mysterious duck hunt in which his father, uncle & grandfather interacted with sentient marsh lights. Now in the realm of the numinous, Daniel shares his personal experiences including a waking vision & how he got the name, Firehawk. To end this epic episode we learn a few words in Algonquin; how to say: "Welcome," "Outsiders," & "May you farewell."  Visit Historic Jamestowne to participate in one of Daniel's interpretive presentations on Saturdays and Sundays and to learn more about the Nanticoke, check out the tribe's website. Support Our Numinous Nature on Patreon.Follow Our Numinous Nature & my naturalist illustrations on InstagramCheck out my shop of shirts, prints, and books featuring my artContact: herbaceoushuman@gmail.com

Jay Meredith of Maryland's Eastern shore is the owner & tour guide of the historic Bucktown general store, as well as the founder of Blackwater Adventures kayak & bicycle rentals. Living within the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park, and with his own American roots dating back to 1668, Jay has become something of an unofficial local historian & folklorist. First we hear about the significance of the general store - bought & restored by Jay - where Harriet Tubman was hit in the head by an irate slave overseer, a fateful injury that opened Tubman to divine guidance. We learn about her early life & her tremendous courage, her husband [a free man] & her possible escape routes through the foreboding swamps. Still feared by the locals today, the Greenbriar Swamp bubbles with legends of treasure & the ghost tale of an enslaved woman, Big Liz. We wrap up this riveting episode on lighter topics: mysterious jewelry found in the fireplace, the critters in the Blackwater Refuge, tasty invasive fish & deer, old guns, the local tribes, & eel pots. Visit the Bucktown General Store & kayak with Jay's Blackwater Adventures in the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. Support Our Numinous Nature on Patreon.Follow Our Numinous Nature & my naturalist illustrations on InstagramCheck out my shop of shirts, prints, and books featuring my artContact: herbaceoushuman@gmail.com

Captain Wade H. Murphy, Jr is a 5th-generation Tilghman Islander who oyster dredges from a national historic landmark, a skipjack named the Rebecca T. Ruark built in 1886. Being America's oldest commercial sailboat in operation & hearing from her ol' time waterman captain, makes this episode a slice of Chesapeake Bay living history.  We begin with family - his grandfather having fallen overboard in 1914 - and hear about the rough bygone crews, skipjacks, the Oyster Wars, and how exactly "arster drudgin'" works. For story time, Capt. Wade recounts his harrowing experience of going down with his ship during an unparalleled November storm. One feels like they're there in the pissing rain & crashing waves as the Captain describes it in vivid detail, culminating on how the historic ship was saved from dying on the bottom of the Choptank River. We end with some question and answer: sailing superstitions, the captain's religiousness, things found in the dredge net, and a short ghost encounter.If planning a Chesapeake Bay trip, sail onboard Capt. Wade's historic skipjack or join his son's outfit to catch a Maryland crab feast. Support Our Numinous Nature on Patreon.Follow Our Numinous Nature & my naturalist illustrations on InstagramCheck out my shop of shirts, prints, and books featuring my artContact: herbaceoushuman@gmail.com

Tom Horton is an environmental columnist, nature writer, documentary filmmaker, and teacher of writing & environmental studies at Salisbury University on Maryland's Eastern Shore. With the soul of an early 20th-century poet & a lifetime spent on the Chesapeake Bay, Tom gets right to covering a handful of its many wonders & predicaments: the primordial horseshoe crab spawn; the beneficial effects of beavers on the watershed; tundra swan migrations; and the plight of drowning islands due to rising sea levels. For story time, Tom reads one of his essays about his observations while kayaking in the midst of the monarch migration. His second reading - of equal wonder for the mysteries of nature - follows the truly epic eel exodus from Appalachian streams to the Sargasso Sea. We culminate with a report on the health of the Bay: humanity's impact; pollution & possible solutions; hope as opposed to optimism; and fond memories of a boyhood spent mucking in the marshes.  Check out Horton's book of essays, Bay Country, or his memoir of life on Smith Island, An Island Out of Time. Click the links for his documentaries on rising sea levels or Chesapeake blue crabs. And subscribe for free to the Bay Journal. Support Our Numinous Nature on Patreon.Follow Our Numinous Nature & my naturalist illustrations on InstagramCheck out my shop of shirts, prints, and books featuring my artContact: herbaceoushuman@gmail.com

The podcast is one year old! In this anniversary bonus episode we go over some highlights from the past year while reflecting on lessons learned and forecast a list of topics to cover in the following year. Then it's reading time, I relate various texts to themes brought up throughout the 24 episodes of the podcast: regarding hunting & pelts, a 17th-century fable about selling a bear skin; regarding my current interest in the Chesapeake Bay, a brief analysis of treasure folklore and a Virginia pirate legend; regarding herbalism, plant-lore, and witchery, historical uses & magical beliefs surrounding the elder tree; and finally, regarding the podcast's continual presence of ghosts, death, & afterlife, Carl Jung's thoughts & personal experiences of the hereafter. Thank you for listening to Our Numinous Nature & riding along for the unfolding journey.If interested in purchasing the books read in this episode: Fables of La Fontaine, Illustrated by Gustave Doré; Virginia Folk Legends, Edited by Thomas E. Barden; Under the Witching Tree by Corinne Boyer; and Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl G. Jung.Follow Our Numinous Nature & my naturalist illustrations on InstagramCheck out my shop of shirts, prints, and books featuring my artContact: herbaceoushuman@gmail.com

Alpheus Chewning is a Virginia Beach author, folklorist, ghost-walk guide, and living historian with a focus on Chesapeake Bay pirates, the Civil War, & regional hauntings. In this episode we get a taste of what it would have been like aboard a pirate ship during the Golden Age of Piracy [1680 - 1730]. We learn about their egalitarian ethics, ship contracts & recruitment; what they ate; how they slept; using the bathroom; their clothing; flag pictograms & symbolism; superstitions & common phrases; the dividing of treasure; and of course, their brutal yet creative guerrilla battle tactics. When it comes to story time, Al recounts the tale of Blackbeard's curse upon the legendary treasure buried at today's First Landing State Park. His second story, which also blends history & folklore & dates to the early 18th century, is a potent parable about a beautiful & eccentric animal-whisperer/plant healer who was accused of being a witch by her neighbors. The last third of the episode is dedicated to local hauntings: ghosts' participation in a Civil War reenactment; a profound theory about past lives, & more. From the first colonist ships, to Indian graves & pirate battles, we end back at the storied First Landing State Park as Al speaks of his paranormal investigation of a young woman's ghost. Pirates, witches, and ghosts, this episode is beach campfire gold!  Check out Al's Histories & Haunts Facebook, his books on Virginia Beach, and if you're in the area, join one of his guided ghost walks. To learn more, watch Al's cameo in The Pirates of the Chesapeake Bay documentary or read his recommendation of the best book on the topic.  Support Our Numinous Nature on Patreon.Follow Our Numinous Nature & my naturalist illustrations on InstagramCheck out my shop of shirts, prints, and books featuring my artContact: herbaceoushuman@gmail.com

Paul Murdoch is an amateur paleontologist, fossil hunting guide, ghost hunter, and certified Chesapeake Bay Storyteller operating out of Calvert County, Maryland on the bay's western shore. A highly engaging educator, Paul teaches us about the comet impact that formed the bay [35 million years ago] and why the Calvert Cliffs region is renowned for fossils of the Miocene epoch [8-22 million years ago] . We learn about long extinct, ancient whales, dolphins, sharks, and mollusks while getting some tips on how to read a fossil's story & fossil hunting etiquette. In the first of Paul's stories, he recounts his most significant find, the skull of an undiscovered species of squalodon [a shark toothed whale]. Then we switch gears from fossil hunting to ghost hunting!!! With a deep historical knowledge Paul talks about spending the night at haunted lighthouses and Civil War prisoner camps. For his second tale, he shares a riveting & chilling archeological ghost story about his involvement digging up the bones of Irish railroad workers, bringing to light a malevolent, historical coverup. Wrapping up this excellent episode we hear about: how the dead can speak, banding monarch butterflies, and what to expect on one of Paul's guided hunts.  If you're in the Chesapeake Bay area check out Paul's guided fossil hunting trips: Chesapeake Heritage And Paleontology Tours. Read about & see pictures of his significant finds: Squalodon [shark tooth whale] & Eurhinodelphis [long-snouted dolphin]. Support Our Numinous Nature on Patreon.Follow Our Numinous Nature & my naturalist illustrations on InstagramCheck out my shop of shirts, prints, and books featuring my artContact: herbaceoushuman@gmail.com

Teresa Boardwine is a registered herbalist with the American Herbalist Guild, as well as a teacher and the founder of Green Comfort School of Herbal Medicine in Washington, Virginia. In this fluid & truly magical episode we take a metaphorical [& metaphysical] walk down to the river behind Teresa's home for a glimpse into wild medicinal plants, history, and spirit. We learn about wild yam & its connection to birth control; bloodroot's use in Listerine, marshmallow root for acid reflux; outdoor sacred spaces; Rudolf Steiner's childrearing philosophy; and much more. For story time, Teresa tells of crossing the witch-hazel threshold on the banks of the river where she's baptized her daughter. From there we're in the land of spirit hearing about plant journeys, a red clover fairy, and her circle of spirit guides. Coming to the end of this wild river ride, we do some folklore hunting for "murkles" [aka morels] & get a tasty stinging nettle pesto recipe. Do not miss this swift, joyous, ephemeral, and enchanting episode! Check out Teresa's Instagram and visit Green Comfort to learn more about her herbal school in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Follow Our Numinous Nature & my naturalist illustrations on InstagramCheck out my shop of shirts, prints, and books featuring my artContact: herbaceoushuman@gmail.com