Walk with SMB: Remember You ARE Nature
Episode 1 Summary: What if the deepest root cause of burnout isn't just stress or workload—but forgetting something essential about who we are?
In this opening episode, Susan shares the Camino revelation that sparked this podcast: We ARE nature. Not separate from it. Not visitors to it. When we lose connection to the natural world, we feel incomplete—tired, lonely, half-present.
This is the story of how patience, observation, and remembering changed everything. It's an invitation to explore what might shift when you stop trying to optimize your way to wellbeing and start reconnecting with the nature you already are.
If you've tried all the wellness strategies and still feel exhausted, start here.
Episode Length: 18 minutes
Show Notes
What happens when the place where your heart feels most alive doesn’t match the world where you spend most of your time?
In this opening episode of Rooted: A Podcast About Nature & Wellbeing, Susan Morgan Bailey explores the tension between modern life and our innate connection to the natural world. After decades working in organizational culture and wellbeing, and a transformative walk along the Camino de Santiago, Susan began asking a deeper question:
How do we stay rooted in nature while living in an increasingly built and artificial world?
This episode introduces the core lens of the podcast — that nature-based wellbeing isn’t about escaping modern life. It’s about remembering that we are nature, and that reconnecting to the natural world may be essential for nervous system regulation, resilience, and thriving in an artificial age.
You’ll hear about:
Walking the Camino de Santiago and adopting the pace of nature
The idea of living in three worlds: natural, built, and artificial
Why modern burnout and disconnection may be rooted in nature loss
How nature connection practices can ground and reorient us
What it means to remember: You are nature
If you’ve ever felt more yourself outside, you’re not alone. This podcast is an invitation to explore what becomes possible when we live in all three worlds — with awareness, intention, and roots in the right place.
Quote from this episode:
“You are nature, and nature is an essential part of your well-being.”
Prefer to read? The full transcript is available below.
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Hi, welcome to the Rooted Podcast, a podcast about the connection between nature and well-being.
This podcast opens with a song. It is a West African Earth praise song called Azima. Azima means praise to the Earth. The “ZI” in the center means star. It’s a song about the Earth and the stars — about beauty, knowledge, and healing here.
I first heard the song when Michael Mead sang it on an episode of his podcast, The Living Myth. When I heard it, it felt like a lullaby. It resonated deeply. I knew it would be a fit for the opening of this show.
Michael Mead is a mythologist and storyteller. Before singing the song, he shared the idea that a song can travel all the way to where someone is and wrap them in protection. And when we sing to the Earth, we remember we belong to each other. A song like this, sung for generations upon generations, is both ancient and immediate. It connects us across time and space.
So I decided to use it as an opening for this new show to help ground us at the beginning of each episode. I hope that when you listen to it, it helps you connect to your core, connect to something greater than yourself, and feel a rooted connection to the Earth.
I bring this song to help us remember that each of these conversations is about our relationship with the Earth and the nature that surrounds us. It creates a container of protection and connection for the exploration ahead. It’s an invitation to arrive, to be present, and to remember we are nature.
So many of you know me, and many of you who will listen to this podcast are just getting to know me. I’m Susan Morgan Bailey. I have a passion for connecting people, ideas, and possibilities. I’m also a nature girl who spent decades working in organizational culture and well-being.
The tension between where my heart lives and where my work happens is actually what this podcast is about.
I’m a former earth science teacher who spent the last 25 years in the organizational culture and wellbeing space, helping organizations design strategies to care for their people. The gap between that nature girl and the work world is what set me on the journey to launch this podcast.
In May of 2025, I walked the Camino de Santiago in Spain — the English Way from Ferrol to Santiago de Compostela. A six-day walk. Backpack on my back. Sixteen pounds of what I needed.
On day three, walking in nature all day, I was struck by something I’d always sensed but had never fully named.
Being out in nature is where we belong.
Nature had always been part of my life. But in recent years, it had become something I did to recharge. Something for my well-being. Shoes off. Barefoot. Feet on the ground. It felt right. But often, I moved quickly through those experiences without really being with nature.
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s words began to take hold in me: “Adopt the pace of nature. Her secret is patience.”
On the Camino and beyond, I began to observe nature differently. I spent more time intentionally outside — pausing, leaning against a tree, noticing the tree I was leaning against.
I began to experience nature as partner, as guide, as teacher.
After returning from the Camino, I started thinking about a podcast. I had been circling the idea for months, but I couldn’t quite find the angle. The old me would have pushed to figure it out. Brainstormed harder. Forced clarity.
Post-Camino me practiced patience.
I let the seed of the idea sit. I trusted it would blossom when it was time. That was one example of adopting the pace of nature in my own life — not forcing, but allowing. The way a bud opens when it’s ready. The way a butterfly emerges when the timing is right.
Late last fall, about six months after the Camino, I attended the Rewilding Summit at Kripalu. There I heard Daniel Vitalis, host of the WildFed TV show, share the concept of three worlds.
We live in the natural world. We are the natural world. Humans are nature.
We also live in a built world — buildings, cars, clothing, structures that enable modern life.
And increasingly, we are immersed in an artificial world — digital environments, algorithms, systems layered on top of our lived experience.
What he shared was this: In order not just to survive, but to thrive in a world that is becoming increasingly built and artificial, staying connected to our roots in nature will be essential.
And it clicked.
The opportunity of this podcast is to explore how we remain well — and how we thrive — in an increasingly artificial world.
For a moment, I wondered if the answer was to run off and live in the woods. The reality I realized was no. Living fully means living in all three worlds with awareness.
Connection to nature is the foundation that allows us to navigate the built and artificial worlds without losing ourselves.
As a coach and wellbeing strategist working with individuals and organizations, I’ve observed that without that connection to nature, we risk floating through life ungrounded. Disconnected from ourselves. Disconnected from each other. Disconnected from the very thing that gives us life.
Because without nature, would we be?
If you’re wondering whether this podcast is for you, it might be.
Maybe you sense something is missing. Maybe you feel unmoored, tired, or disconnected and can’t quite name why. Maybe you’ve tried every approach under the sun and still don’t feel well.
This is an invitation to explore a different root system.
You are nature. And nature is an essential part of your well-being.
If you’ve ever felt more yourself outside, you’re not alone. This might be the exploration you didn’t know you were looking for.
What can you expect here?
Conversations with practitioners of nature connection. Researchers studying what happens when we spend time outside. People who have found their way back to wholeness through nature. And reflections along the way.
I hope it opens a door. Helps you see with fresh eyes. Deepens appreciation. Invites you to discover your own story of connection.
I want this podcast to feel like the Camino. We have a direction, but we’re not rushing. We’ll trust the unfolding. We’ll walk one episode at a time.
When pilgrims pass each other on the Camino, they say, “Buen Camino.” It means good way, good journey. A blessing for the path ahead.
So I’ll send you off that way now.
Buen Camino, friend.
May your path be filled with wonder and connection until we meet again.Description text goes here
