Blue Health, Big Waves & The Sacred Sea, with Easkey Britton

My wife recently shared an episode of the ABC’s Foreign Correspondent, and said I had to watch it. It was called Celtic Waves, with reporter Sean Murphy tracing his ancestral Irish roots to a place that’s become globally renowned for its big wave surfing. Anyway, yes, the surf is amazing, and the people who pioneered it, but it was when Sean met the daughter of one such pioneer, and introduced her as a pioneering ‘marine sociologist’ that my interest was really piqued. Then after listening to her speak, I just had to reach out to invite her on the podcast.

Easkey Britton has continued her family legacy, becoming a legendary surfer in her own right – from being the only kid surfing in her area, to later becoming a 5x national champion and the first woman to surf the huge wave near Mullaghmore, to inspiring and guiding more women and girls into the sport, even where you might least expect it (think Iran - where it was her life that was transformed). 

For her, though, it’s always been much more than a sport. Her PhD, best-selling books and immersive ocean retreats are all about our deeper connections with water, and its power to revive old stories, places and kinships, that heal and inspire. 

And for Easkey, it all turned on a decision her grandmother made. And an impromptu moment of crazy, or brave, or maybe flow state. With some key mentor presences along the way, including one we share. So that's where we start.

Chapter markers & transcript.

Recorded 17 July 2026.

Easkey riding a giant wave in her 2014 Ride of the Year Entry.

You can listen to my conversation with the late Manchán Magan (that I still hear from listeners about) in episode 173 (or the tribute from the start of this year, which includes the last 25 minutes or so from that original episode, in episode 290). And with Tyson Yunkaporta in episode 70.

Music: 

Ocean sounds by Charles Rose.

Regeneration, by Amelia Barden.

If this conversation sparks something, subscribe, share it, and leave a review so more people can find the show. Thanks for listening!

See more photos on the episode web page, and for more behind the scenes, become a supporting listener below.

Transcript

Easkey 0:00

It's just remarkable that the connection that happens and the depth of it so quickly and how people are very quickly the layer we shed those layers of whatever has been making us feel kind of caught in our lives. Adding water into the mix, and you've probably seen this, is just it it's unbelievable the difference.

Opening And Meeting Easkey Britton

AJ 0:22

G'day, Anthony James here for The RegenNarration, featuring the stories that are changing the story, enabling the regeneration of this ocean planet. My wife recently shared an episode of the ABC's foreign correspondent and said I had to watch it. It was called Celtic Waves, with reporter Sean Murphy tracing his ancestral Irish roots to a place that's become globally renowned for its big wave surfing. Yes, the surf is amazing. And the people who pioneered it, but it was when Sean met the daughter of one such pioneer and introduced her as a pioneering marine sociologist that my interest was really piqued. Then after listening to her speak, I just had to reach out to invite her on the podcast. From being the only kid surfing in her area to later becoming a five times national champion and the first woman to surf the huge wave near Mullaghmore to inspiring and guiding more women and girls into the sport, even where you might least expect it. Think Iran. For her though, it's always been much more than a sport. Her PhD, best-selling books, and immersive ocean retreats are all about our deeper connections with water and its power to revive old stories, places and kinships that heal and inspire. So much I'm curious about there. As much as what led to there, and for Easkey, it all turned on a decision her grandmother made. And an impromptu moment of crazy or brave or maybe flow state. With some key mentor presences along the way, including one we share.

Donegal Surf Roots Across Generations

Easkey 2:09

Hey!

AJ 2:10

I had a well, what for us is a cold water surf this morning, which felt appropriate coming in to speak with you, though I did have in mind how much you'd probably laugh at the fact it um was just in a good old two-mil wetsuit, cold being all relative. I wondered if you could bring us into the feel of your place. What's your home feel like to you?

Easkey 2:32

Yeah, well, I mean, yes, I I live on the northwest coast of Ireland in Donegal, and um actually back home where I first grew up and learned to surf, and where my parents learned to surf, and so there's this intergenerational connection with the sea. Um but yeah, in terms of cold, it's I mean, it's what that's what it's known for. But usually right now we're in the middle of this kind of crazy heat wave um across was a lot of the northern hemisphere in Europe and Ireland, we're definitely not used to that. Yeah. So um, huh? Yeah, it's remarkable. We're actually surfing without wetsuits. Um, but you know, incredible to get you know, for the kids to get in the water. Usually they're freezing cold after 20 minutes, and now they can stay in three hours. Um but yeah, that is very unusual. So usually yeah, completely clouded from head to toe and neoprene. And of course the winter season is where it's really at here with the big storm systems in the Atlantic and those kind of swells. Um that feels more familiar and at home to me. I yeah, actually can't really handle much heat.

AJ 3:38

Yeah.

Easkey 3:39

So yeah.

AJ 3:40

I have friends here who are similarly like me, Irish descent, who are less like me in not being able to handle the heat here either. For me here in Western Australia, I guess there's been enough generations between where it feels really good, notwithstanding the global dynamics you you talk about. I wondered if you've been out here. Have you been to Australia?

Easkey 4:02

I have. I haven't been to Western Australia, unfortunately. Um, but I when I was much younger, uh, I used to do like the Pro Junior series on the East Coast of Australia. So it was my late teens, early twenties. Uh spent a good bit of time up and down the east coast um at that in my kind of competitive surfing years. Um but no, I haven't been back in a long time.

AJ 4:24

Where did you go? Was it Bells, do I assume?

Easkey 4:27

Yeah, kind of all the way from Bells up to the Gold Coast and everything in between. So yeah, covered, covered a lot of ground. Uh and then I mean yeah, I went on up and explored at the time the the Great Barrier Reef and um places like that. Yeah, it was a whole other world.

AJ 4:44

Are any of your family, do you know any? Speaking of all the you know, the Irish that made their way here, do you know any of yours that did?

Easkey 4:51

Uh I don't actually. They kind of went the other direction, either across the Atlantic to the Americas or um a lot a lot over to England at the time. But yeah, most kind of stay close to home. And in fact, I suppose at my family too, there's uh they stayed really close to home. So there's where I live in Rasnala, there's like different families of you know, in the whole Britain clan. Um and they all stayed here because of the surf and the sea. So my dad was one of five boys um who all got into surfing in in I suppose the early 60s. I was sort of instigated inadvertently, maybe in a way, by my um grandmother, uh Mary Britton at the time, was promoting tourism. She had a hotel business um here on the West Coast and was promoting tourism in Ireland in America with the Irish-American connections, I guess. Um but even doing that, I suppose, in the 60s, where Ireland was at, we you know, didn't we definitely weren't much of a tourist destination even then. Um yeah, and she ended up in in California in the 60s, Malibu, uh Beach Boys Gidget era, and saw surfing. Uh, long story short, she ended up getting ordering some two of the first, some of the first surfboards to end up back in the country. These 10-foot Malibu pop-outs uh for her hotel. And her intention was to have them for the hotel guests, you know, or to put up on display. And but um, of course, as soon as my dad and his brother saw them, that was like he was 12 years old. Um they grabbed them, took them into the water, and then he said for the first year they weren't really sure what to do with them because they'd never seen surfing. Um, and and they didn't even know you could stand up on it. There's no wax, or uh so they're trying to figure out how to stop me, you know, slipping off this thing, no wetsuits. Um I grew up with all these sort of early pioneering stories of of what it was like to establish that connection with the sea through surfing. Um, but eventually got the hang of it. Dad's still surfing now in his 70s. Um yeah, and now we're into, I suppose, if you can't, my grandparents' fourth, third or fourth generation. Yeah. Which is very unusual in Ireland where the surf scene is, you know, feels a lot newer than maybe Australia even.

AJ 7:08

Yeah. Well, I'm curious about that then. How it was growing up in what essentially then your family, in a way, well, very directly, maps the origin story of what's now become a huge scene. So, how how has that, from your sort of front row seat vantage point,

Ireland’s Fear And Sacred Sea

AJ 7:24

been?

Easkey 7:24

Yeah, it's remarkable, but especially if you look at the kind of zombie might have been look at Ireland and our kind of general culture and attitude towards the ocean. We're an island nation. Um, our ocean territory is far, far greater, many times greater than our land. And yet, I think, well, definitely politically, the will to protect the ocean or to do uh have any regard for it is so low. Um, and we've been very land-centric, very focused on farming and agriculture and um and so for a long time. It's felt like we've turned our backs on the sea. And then also the West Coast has just been so wild and stormy and and unforgiving. So there's that you know, danger and fear associated with the ocean and with a lot of loss. Um, and then for a long time, just not being able to sort of um develop a kind of uh any kind of maritime industry or fishing or under colonial rule for a really long time. So in a lot of those coastal places, there was I suppose quite a complex relationship with the sea in many ways. Uh, and then that kind of legacy gets passed on through generations. Um, but the water in Ireland has always it's always been considered this, I suppose, a sacred place as well. So it holds this interesting duality a lot of the time. And now there seems to be kind of almost bizarrely in a way, through things like surfing and of course um sea swimming, uh really kind of going um bananas here, is this this revival of that kind of connection or rediscovery of the benefits of the ocean in a different way? So from when I started out, there was no no one surfing, especially no other kids in my area. I was the only one who surfed in my school, even though the school is just minutes away from the sea. And Rosnila Beach, where I grew up, is one of the best beaches for learning to surf. It's like two kilometers long, really gently sloping, so very kind of uh soft waves. And then further along the coast, you have Bondor, and there's a whole concentration of some of the best surf breaks in the world. Um, but yeah, now it's like it's part of the school curriculum. They take them surfing for PE, they're doing starting to do beach schools, and the whole thing is exploded. And then these coastal communities that were on their knees, you know, economically too, that because in a way it's of things like surfing, it's a year-round activity, especially in wintertime, so it keeps people in the area uh and keeps that connection alive. So it's yeah, it's it's been a lot of people complain, oh, it's getting so busy and crowded, but the I mean the actual overall benefit I think is is enormous.

AJ 9:59

Yeah, it's amazing to think that similar here, and I guess it makes sense when when so much of the early colonial settlement of Australia was from Ireland and England. The similar dichotomies around water, huh? That sacred almost mythological aspects, yet I mean, quite directly the creeks and rivers were were dumps and oceans, cliffs, you know, just throw stuff over the top and it would disappear. So, yeah, similar here in that regard. I am fascinated to think about the many ways that this is bringing reconnection in that way that you're talking about Eiskey. And it's topical to come across you now. I mean, the very reason I came across you was because my dad had done a bunch of genealogy and he's the one in our family who turned up some of the some of the roots. They'd been lost. And then when my wife found the foreign correspondent episode that you were in with your old man, she was the one who said, You have to watch this, and we've come to be here today. But it was only just prior. So, sure, I'm sitting with all this stuff that dad did, he passed away five years ago, so I've got all this stuff, and and it's sort of on me now, but I never really felt Irish. I love the hot weather. We're here in Western Australia. Um, you know, a a cold surf is 18 degree water temperature, isky. So I'd never really felt Irish really until uh I had a guest on the podcast called Munkan McGann.

Language That Teaches Place

AJ 11:26

And he had connected with Western Australia, would you believe? And particularly Aboriginal Australia, because the connections in stories and so forth were so vivid, which is a whole a whole thing to itself and incredible. And through him, of course, and his work, I for the first time really started to feel into it. And he's been a presence in your life too, hey?

Easkey 11:48

Yeah, yeah. Mankan's has been a great friend and mentor. Um, it was so tragic to have lost him last year. Um, but I had a had the privilege and honour of yeah, well, working alongside him with an amazing uh Irish nature regeneration charity called Home Tree, based in the west coast of Ireland as well. That we've been journeying with them for a long time. And uh yeah, and then also through through all of his teachings and the Irish language in particular, seeing that as a way to really deepen that ecological kind of connection with place. Um, and so he would have, yeah, often shared a lot of notes. Yeah. Um as a as fellow writers, and yeah, there's so many crossovers there, and he leaves such an incredible legacy as well.

AJ 12:36

Oh, incredible legacy. That's the only thing that sort of softens it a little bit, I guess, is that there's so much that he did that certainly from afar, it almost feels like his presence is unabated. You know, so many books, so many films, uh, so many podcasts. Which is the gift of it. I wonder for you then, have you sort of really delved into that ancient language restoration avenue and all that's around it? Has it been something for you to that you've got on with?

Easkey 13:04

Yeah, it's I mean, it's always there, even whether you are able to speak the language or not. I think it's it's a really it's interesting and challenging time, I think, for uh people in Ireland where you know it's incredible that the language is still held on. And we do have these Irish-speaking areas called Galecox, and it's it's just it's such a rich language, and it does, it's so full of meaning, even if you just look at the place names and they usually just describe sometimes now the what are lost habitats or ecosystems or animals or creatures that were there that no longer are, and um or about that, especially that relationship we would have had too, and it's a phenomenal level of detail that I suppose points to an intimacy that we had ancestrally, uh, just through time and observation and um that again, I suppose, connection to place, or as Moncon called it, the ability to listen to the land speak. And the same with the I think being able to listen to the sea speak. So, although we kind of had this sort of disconnect maybe with the sea and the ocean, um, it's interesting then through this revival that's happening in Ireland now with the Irish language, especially through you know more mainstream and popular culture and through music and um groups and bands, like of course Kneecap, and then you have um Irish film um doing really well too, and um, it's really helping people reconnect with it. But in in surfing, it's interesting because you have things like the Irish Surf Film Festival now runs every year, and they choose an Irish word as the kind of theme of their photography competition, and it usually describes an element of the ocean or a or or a type of wave. Um so there's so many words that describe all these different, I suppose, ocean coastal features and from the movement of water and currents, all these patterns, different, even all the different types of waves, they all have a name. Um, so there's, you know, and then there's often lots of layers of meaning. Um there's things like even I think last year's word was lunar. So lunar means um that glitter path uh on the water when the sun hits it, um, and it creates that shimmer. But it also is the word used to describe that feeling you get when you see that, that feeling, I suppose, of joy. Um and then there's another one, faragacaucha, which describes the type of, you know, when the wind's blowing uh offshore and they have that um that effect coming off the top of a wave as it's about to break and it creates that lovely spray. Um but it all also comes from the Irish word faragotcha, would have been what they would have done when they were threshing the oats in the field and throwing it in the air, and it would get caught by the wind and it would look the same. Um so there's all those connections. And then, of course, my name. So it has its roots in the Irish for fish, eisky meaning uh like an abundance of fish. Esk is the Irish word for fish. Um, and it's a place name as well on the west coast of Ireland, named for the its importance um as a, I suppose, a salmon river and estuary. Um, and it's the river that actually gives shape to the waves. So it's just this reminder constantly, even in my name, that there was a time when our ancestors kind of knew and understood the importance of those kind of connections between, you know, how a river is doing, how the salmon is doing, and the sea and and ourselves. Um, yeah, so it's it's always there, even though I'm not a fluent Irish speaker in the way Moncon was by any means. Um, but I am always trying to find ways to weave it back into our lives. And now as a mum with two little kids, it's a lovely way to start to introduce the world and new things to them, learn it, trying to learn the word for it, I suppose, first in Irish, especially for our they're kind of mad about birds, birds and the weather and the sea. So yeah, it's a it's a lovely way for me to sort of reconnect with it through them because yeah, it's there's no no judgment there. It doesn't have to be perfect.

AJ 17:16

Oh, that's just amazing to think. I mean, I've heard of things like, and prior to coming across Munkan's work, like I think it's Japan that had 32 oh no, I'm talking about Munkan's title, 32 words for field, that had like a ton of words for snow. And and then, yeah, to hear that it was the same, you know, for field in this case is Munkan's book. But also for those feelings.

Easkey 17:37

Well, yeah, Munkan's last oh, the feelings related to the sea. Yeah, Munkan's last book is the same when you said about snow, uh, is 99 words for rain and one for sun. It sums up like the Irish psyche and yeah, everything in it, one title.

AJ 17:55

Exactly. And sums up in turn why I never felt Irish. Like I'm more like here in Western Australia, in the south of Western Australia, it's the inverse, right? So um I've grown up with that. But no, this is beautiful because you know you described that phenomenon and the feeling of the shimmering on the on the water. That is just one of the sheer points of magic in life for me as a fellow ocean dweller. And I've never had literally never had a word for it. And you've just sort of left it in the wordless domain, and that's fine. But fascinating that culture's going back the eons, and it it makes me equally curious about the ones here, of course. Did they have words like that? I've never asked anyone of my friends in the yeah, I'm going to now.

Easkey 18:39

Yeah, I think Monk that was Moncon's way to sort of connect across cultures then as well, was to sort of look at just ask just that, you know, to learn how in yeah, other um in other places people who haven't lost that ancestral connection and that indigenous worldview in particular of yeah, what what other ways of seeing are there? Um, and through through language, that's I suppose the language that's closest to that original connection with the place still holds so much knowledge. Um, and of course, that's often why language is one of the first things to go um that creates that disconnect with place and land and water. Yeah.

AJ 19:20

Right, right. Yeah, whether it's you still in place or me, you know, five generations removed. The phenomenon

Surf Culture That Crossed The Troubles

AJ 19:28

applies. With your old man, I'm curious when on that foreign correspondent episode, your dad said that your mum regretted henceforth ever having brought the surfboards back. Was that true? Did did she really regret having brought the surfboards back, having seen how much it consumed his board?

Easkey 19:46

My grandmother.

AJ 19:47

Yeah.

Easkey 19:48

Yeah, my grandmother was um, yeah, she was this really uh formidable businesswoman and was quite strict in how she wanted to raise her sons and to raise them proper. And she always said not to turn them into beach bums. So I think she regretted that part that they were all like the and then with dad, he he went to college and he studied architecture, but in the end he kind of just he he took off and went on this great big road trip with his friends through Europe and down into Morocco and North Africa in the 70s instead of finishing.

AJ 20:23

Wow. Um there was got a hint of Munkard in it too, hey? Like that's what he did when he took off. He moved it into Africa as well. Yeah, yeah. So how did you feel? I mean, having a hotel by the sea and not wanting a beach bum bunch of boys is probably always up against it. But how did she feel about you? Did she live long enough to see you get into it and become so um successful and recognized in it too?

Easkey 20:51

Yeah, I mean, despite that comment, um she'd always try to, you know, make out that she was um just unimpressed by this. It was surfing too at the time, was kind of very fringe and considered counterculture, um, you know, the whole anti-establishment, and she was weary of all of that. But at the same time, very visionary and pioneering herself. So she, along with uh my grandfather, but they would have donated land for the first surf club house to be built, which is still there today and it's the largest surf club in the country, and then sponsored the what became sponsored and established the it's it's the I think it's one of the longest-running surfing events in the world. It's it's going must be over 50 years now. But the Irish Surfing Intercounties. Um, so it was this idea, we have this event, which is kind of more like a festival at the end of ours, at the end of their tourist season, so October. Um great time for surf, and then get all the counties, so all the surfers from around Ireland to come uh and represent their county and surf and surf as uh teams rather than individuals, which was really made a lot more fun too. And it was an all-Irel Event and so you also had a lot of surfers come from the north, and and this was all through the time of the height of the troubles, or what was called the troubles, that conflict in Northern Ireland with the height of sectarianism and a lot of violence. And surfing kind of just you know just bypassed all of that because it was all one ocean. Um, and then in fact, the Antrim team from the North Coast often won it back then. They were some of the best surfers. Uh, but it was yeah, this wonderful gathering, and it's still we still celebrate that today. Um, so she, yeah, it was quite quite interesting. The hand my grandparents had in it.

AJ 22:37

Yeah. And I'm conscious too that you seem to have, speaking of someone like Munkan in my life, who I never met yet had this drop in the ocean effect, that you had too a kind a figure in your life like that from Hawaii, whose name was Rel Sun.

Easkey 22:56

Yeah.

AJ 22:57

A figure that you never met, yet had a profound impact.

Easkey 23:00

Yeah, that's true. I mean, especially at a time too, when I was supposed I was a kid growing up here in Ireland, didn't have access to a lot of female role models and surfing, because surfing was so relatively new here. Um and even but now, in a way, we can have these connections uh that are quite incredible, maybe even with people we've never met, and we might even work together through the internet and these these the technology that can facilitate that. But I suppose then it was like, you know, there was it was pre really all of that. And I remember discovering Wahim Surf Magazine. I think it was one of the first women's, like all all women's surf magazines, and ordered a subscription. And I had uh one of the issues had this wonderful feature on on Ral Sun, Hawaiian Surfer, uh, on the front cover, and just this amazing well, life story of this all-around water woman and everything that she embodied. And what I think what I was really struck by was um her amazing, obviously, style and grace, her ability to combine that sense of like femininity, that expression of who she was, in some of the most powerful surf in the world. Uh, and the sort of the way she moved, I suppose, on her surfboard too, was with such sort of grace and fluidity and power and control. So it was this lovely coming together of those mix of energies that didn't really get portrayed very often in surfing. It was more, especially if the shortboard era and having to, you know, rip tear, slash, um, all those kinds of words, even. Right. Yeah, it didn't embody the feeling for me, although I I, you know, I do I am a shortboarder. Um, but it was just this wonderful, yeah, and that you could combine your love for the ocean. Like that basically surfing is could just be this vehicle to help um deepen that connection, which was so alive for someone like Ral Sun. And then also then her her ability to pass that on was remarkable to share that, especially with kids and with young people, and and setting up what still runs today in in Hawaii and Oahu, the like the many, the many hoonie uh event. So for for kids to introduce them to the sea and surfing. Um, yeah, I just uh I was just enthralled with her story and then how she blazed that trail for women surfing and was such an advocate and a voice at a time when it was really sidelined and helping to establish the first kind of women's organization within surfing to campaign for um well, we what we did finally end up getting equal pay for um equal work in competitive surfing and professional surfing. So yeah, they they established the women's kind of first professional body, and um yeah, there's a lot in terms of a legacy that we we owe to her and her peers at the time. Um and then it was also then probably my first real loss, you know, like someone also I had never met, but such a and in a way a mentor and idol, even though from afar, following her story and hoping to one day meet. Um but then she passed sadly passed um at an extremely young age after a very long battle with breast cancer, I think the age of 47. And this was around it was 1998. Uh so I was a little 11 years old or there about. Um yeah, and yeah, and then I think even she continues to have such an impact as well, I mean, long after her passing. But it was just that discovery of how like surfing it was more than so much more than a sport. Um, and then this was the beauty and power of being able to pass that on as a gift for people so they could feel that kind of connection and the benefits that it brings. Um, and I think that piece has really stayed with me. Um yeah.

Competing For Travel Not Trophies

AJ 26:54

Right. It's so interesting for someone who competed so long, like winning so many national champs. Like, so you s you competed, you sort of never lost your taste for that, but you always had a deeper meaning at play.

Easkey 27:12

Yeah, yeah, and maybe also influenced by the mix in within my own family and household, and dad being um, yes, one of the pioneering surfers, but very, you know, um supposed that tip archetypal soul surfer. Um and having absolutely no interest in the commercial side of the sport and and that competitive competitive part, and not really seeing how that had a role to play because of you know just being drawn to the ocean over how it makes you feel, and that surfing then is this vehicle to access that feeling, right? And I completely got that as well. But then for me growing up where I did too, surfing and doing the competitions, it was you know, Donny Gall, it's so isolated, really, socially, rurally, economically, uh, growing up. But surfing then was this hub and a way to sort of mix with and meet all these other kids from all these other places, and we could then all come and have gather here in the summertime, and we'd have the junior national championships are always held at my local beach, and so it was just that buzz and fun, and then meeting people, so that social aspect, and then joining the Irish surf team from a very young age. I think it was age 12 when I was on first on the squad, and we were able to travel then to go to events like the European Championships and the World Surfing Games, and that just felt like wow, this is gonna open up a whole other world. And it was just like you know, when you grow up somewhere like this and you're young and you just want to get out of there, so it's just ticket to travel. Um, it seemed like a no-brainer. If I compete and do well, I can travel and see the world. Brilliant. That and I did obviously have the drive and focus. I really learned a lot from the competitive side of it as well. Um, don't get me wrong, I was definitely competitive. Um, but there was always this other pull, I think. You know, I yeah, I don't know if my heart was ever fully in it in terms of the winning. It was more, yeah. I always felt like there was a sort of missing piece for me in what I was seeking. Um, but it was great, yeah, at the time.

AJ 29:19

Right. You know, for me it was free diving because I came across a figure who became who became a trigger for a generation, well, the generation since of freedivers to the point where today now that's huge. And breath work and so forth, as you've gotten into as well, is huge. And that was Jacques Mayol, the French diver who blew the lid off freediving and believed we were more akin to our mammalian cousins in the ocean than we believed, and that one day we would be diving to the lengths of time they do, etc. And he was proven true. That set me alight in that deeper way, those whatever, 30, 40 years ago. And it's I just get a little insight, little insight. I mean, you're you're at this elite level of competing, but just in my humble triathlon days, that for all my love of water, I my worst leg was in the water because it would almost be like I'd half drift away and be lost to it, as opposed to being on there and be able to focus on the actual competing.

Mullaghmore Big Waves And Beginner Mind

AJ 30:17

But I'm almost most curious with you, Isky, is when you when you rode Mullock Moore, the big wave, for the first time, and you were the first woman to do it. I'm curious how that felt, if you can transplant yourself back there. Both in terms of the social context, the first woman out there to do it, and then yes, the visceral reality and and the internal stuff you had to stare down or embrace or or however.

Easkey 30:46

Yeah, it was a remarkable time looking back at it, really being at the vanguard of what's become a big way of surfing in Ireland, but even in globally in the world at the time, it was so small, and it was back around the like towards the end of the noddies, around, well, maybe in 2010s that we started to really explore it a lot more here. Um kind of from yeah, that 2007 was the first year I would have served what people call Aileen, so at the Cliffs of Moore on the Sharek. Um, and that was at the time where I had just gone to watch, uh I'd heard about this wave that was breaking at the foot of the Cliffs of Moore. So the Cliffs of Moore is probably one of the newest most premier tourist attractions now in Ireland. So everyone goes, there are busloads of people to stand at these cliffs, and obviously, then how could you miss this huge wave breaking at the foot of it? But it was considered just totally inaccessible and unsurfable because it's at the bottom of the highest sort of sea cliffs, one of the highest sea cliffs in the world or in Europe. Um no way to get out. Um, and then I think maybe with the advent of, of course, something like the jet scheme made that more accessible, but it was in the end, but it was really, it was this is amazing, like traveling surfers uh from Cornwall, um, who just had this real affinity to the West Coast of Ireland as well, and and Mickey Smith, Jack Johns, those kind of early pioneers. And often it takes that. I'm always fascinated, especially in surfing, uh, what we consider the foreigners to come, but the mixing of people coming, other places with fresh eyes, and seeing something that we've probably been staring at for so long and never saw that way or never imagined possible. So sort of expanding our imaginations of possibility that happens through other people, having that real diversity, and that's part of surfing that I love. And so they wanted to scramble down this goat trail and get out there and ride these waves way, way back then. Um, and and then we slowly all began to have a stab at it. But they were filming what the documentary Wave Riders at the time, um, actually documenting that kind of unusual Irish-Hawaiian connection through surfing and um George Friedh's story, and but they were also then documenting some of the first big waves to be ridden in Ireland, including Athliffsamora and Modlockmore. Um, I remember the Malloy brothers were over, who were also had an influence on me and my surfing as well. Um, having I kind of spent a lot of time in Ireland in those more formative years for me, and there was one of the first surfers I saw riding big waves, and they gave me a phone call to say they were going to go out that day, and I just drove down to have a look. Um and I managed to get out in one of the jet skis, and I was looking looking at these waves, and no, no intention, no thought, didn't have any equipment and didn't have a board, uh, never written a, never towed into anything in my life. Um, and it was just blown away by the power of this place. Um, the these you know huge sheer cliffs and the all this energy coming in from the open ocean, and it's this incredible, like cartoon almost wave. It's so perfectly shaped with this huge barrel. It's this, it's a right-hander. And then I just remember it was kind of we've been out for hours in April, uh, it was late evening, there wasn't even much light left, there wasn't much fuel left in the jet skis. The film crew were nearly all wrapped. And then a friend of mine, Dylan Stott, he was also had moved over from Ireland from America. He was like, Come on, Iskis, grab on, I'll give it a go. Wow. And I just didn't have time to think, and he was so enthusiastic. Um, and so I remember it was in Chris Malloy's toe vest. He's this, you know, famous pro surfer from from America, and it but it was way too big for me. Um but it stuck it on anyways as tight as I could, and then the the toes, the straps, even that you when you're toe surfing, you have your feet um strapped onto a board because you're being pulled by a jet ski, so you have all that extra speed and momentum. Um, and they weren't they were like way too wide. Um nothing was right. But the everything was right, maybe. So the timing just aligned. I remember the very first time you kind of pulled me into like I never, this is the first time hanging on to experiencing anything like this at a at a place like that, which is kind of nuts looking back. I don't think I'd do it, um, knowing now the what that wave is really capable of. Um sometimes having that like total beginner's mind is a good thing. Um but also knowing hey, it's probably the safest time to do it. I've got like some of the best water people in the world around me. Um and you know. But so I just I hunk was hanging on so tight onto the end of the tow rope that I didn't let go the first time around, you know, and Dylan's shouting at me, I was like, no, no, no. Um and then the second time around, just feeling that moment of kind of that lift of the wave, because the sensation is obviously totally different to paddling in, um, and then letting go and just the that feeling that basically the wave is rising up behind me, these cliffs are rising up in front of me, and I'm just in the middle of it all. And the feeling was so incredible of that first wave, it just never left me. It was ecstatic. I think for days I was just so giddy. Um, and then and then it actually took a couple of years of um trying to find a way into this big wave surfing scene because it was so uh so fringe, but also at the time no one was paddling these waves. Um and places like Mullop more, you know, they were still considered it's it's not possible on big days. Um and of course, all that has evolved so much since too. But this was really there was only a handful of us as well. But I think at the time maybe everyone was uh too afraid to sort of you have to have a tow partner, so you know I needed a buddy to team up with me, either because they were afraid of dad and what would happen if anything went wrong, or I don't know. But eventually I managed to pester my cousin. Uh, so there's you know, nothing's thicker than blood. We'd be we'd be grand um into going halves on this jet ski and we trained together, um, which was some of the best fun was even just trying to figure all of this stuff out, or developing those water safety skills, the ability to carry out rescues in these crazy conditions, and and just of course I was one of the lads, but it didn't seem like that. We're just this sort of full um mad crew anyway, a handful of us. And to the point we're back then, and it was um there was some amazing swells around 2010, 2011. I went on some of the waves got nominated for the at the time it was the the Billabong XXL Awards, which are now the you know the global WSL big wave awards. Um yeah, but it was just it was something to do that was at the time too transitioning out of competitive surfing and into this other world where it just felt like it stripped everything away, all of that judgment, ego, swagger idea to perform, even performing. And it was just about this encounter, it was so powerful between you and and a wave, and then needing to build a phenomenal level of trust in my own body and abilities, and then and in the ocean and really getting to know. I think it was that incredible, those were really, really good at with a big wave surfing. I imagine each of those surfers have a really profound place connection with a particular wave. And you can kind of see that there's they tend to gravitate towards, be it, you know, Piahi in Hawaii or these Nazare in Portugal. For me, it was Molochmore. It was just this this bra, as we say in Irish, love. Uh, but an inexplicable pull at the time. Like it's just because it's crazy, it's a really um ferocious kind of place most of the time, and it just cops the full brunt of all the North Atlantic energy. But it's always really unruly, howling wind. You're in the border lineup, you know, there's like small craft warnings, and you're kind of gearing up in the dark, getting resi, because it's gonna, you know, it's gonna be big enough. But but you're gonna sometimes the wind was so strong it would just like blow the jet ski over, so you just topple off sideways. And the chop would be about six foot when you're trying to line up for a wave. So it was brutal on the body, it was definitely something something to do in your 20s. So my body, I don't know how many people still stay out of it, but in cold water and just getting pulled and torn into bits.

AJ 39:41

It's true too. Yeah, the um I remember the one that's um commonly seen now, I think it was in Billabong Awards clip, isn't it, on YouTube? I'll include the link in the show notes for people. That I did notice how the back was fully chopped, and I'm not accustomed to seeing such a perfect wave in such complete chops. So, yeah, just getting an insight. Unbelievable is here that that was an impromptu first run.

Easkey 40:03

It's an unbelievable moment. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, there's that. So and now it's crazy to see how much it's changed. Go on. Well, it was just at the time, even the because there's usually just that one clip, and people ask, Oh, have you got you know footage or and they do have some there's some beautiful photos as well, but also the the you know, videographers and photograp water photography was in its sort of early stages as well. So those those guys going out and shooting, even the camera equipment, and that was all new, and so there were and there was no drones and there was no GoPros even. Um trying to and then the and the conditions were so wild that to fill them from land you would nearly not see anything because it would just be sideways wind and rain. So there's very little actually footage from that time. Um, and then now it's just like it's a whole other thing, and but now I was sort of coming as supposed to the end of my time with it, and then also starting to paddle out there, which was a beautiful experience as well, but totally different. But again, of course, it it's so well known, it just started to get so much busier, yeah. And it was just a very it's a very different feeling, and it was almost like then you're like a gladiator in an arena, like the whole headland would be lined up with cars and people and spectators, and the channel is full now of you know, jet skis and boats, and um, so there's all that noise and stimulation. And I think I was yeah, I suppose my the pull for me was something very different, and so it just shifted. And uh it's amazing to see how far in terms of human potential it's gone and the limits. Um the waves are so so much, yeah, so enormous what they're writing, it's incredible. But um, yeah, I thought yeah, it was very different.

AJ 41:50

Well, that's the beautiful aspect of it. Yeah. So speaking of Hawaii, did you know at the time, or did this come later, your knowledge of the ancient surfing, well, ancient, certainly centuries-old surfing tradition that men and women shared in Hawaii? Or did did you learn of that later on?

Easkey 42:06

It's a good question. Yeah, I think I I think I already knew about that. Um because I just when I kind of take this discover something I'm drawn to or interested in, I tend to go like all in and deep dive and have that kind of mindset where I just want to research, investigate, explore, and know everything there is to know about it. And so, and I from any and all sources. And so I was, you know, that's why I've always done quite well in in the traditional academic sense. But it just comes from that real curiosity of wanting to better understand that, and maybe also in part too, with having that other great mentor in my life was Irish artist Pauline Buick. But she also traveled and spent a lot of time in the South Pacific and in those islands, and so hearing her stories, you know, living in in those communities, uh, obviously through through a different lens, but just this different way of life and this sense of this islandness and all the colour that we didn't have in our buttons but the similarities at the same time, because of this feeling of being an islander, perhaps I was curious and drawn to that and intrigued of what there would there be any crossovers, even though we're such a cold water island in a very different ocean. Um, so I I do see that in language and in music, and then even in a relationship with the sea, there are definite crossovers. Not, you know, um, maybe not so obvious. Uh and then of, but this, yeah, obviously this revelation in terms of the story of a sport of how it was initiated um equally by men and women. And in fact, there's a lot more women that were known for in Hawaii in the stories they have of really strong, powerful um women trailblazing surfing, um, and also surfing being this. Really multifaceted thing in in Hawaiian culture and uh in Polynesia and across that part of the world. It just seemed yeah, um a really important thing. And then you know, in the history of having the those early images um from those colonial voyages, but documenting then seeing that oh the visual impact of seeing that of women in the water. Um yeah.

AJ 44:27

Yeah. It reminds me of Tyson Young Kaporter when I spoke with him for the podcast. He wrote in his first book, Sand Talk, a thing he thinks about every day. And so, of course, I'm so curious to ask him about that. He thinks about it every day, he said. And funnily enough, he said no one had ever asked him that before. So it produced a real moment of sinking in with him on this point. And so, in turn, I've never forgotten it. The emotion he spoke with when he talked about uh seeing old footage, and I guess it was first contact or first contact dish, in the Andaman Islands, and it was a man and a woman, and he just described them in the imagery as being equally piercing in their eyes, their intellect, and strong in their physiques. Absolutely moulded to land, and both of them fiercely looking, intelligent and strong. And that that really stayed with him. It reminded me of that, and in turn, from another perspective, it reminded me of the Korean female divers, that old lineage of divers. I think they would they would go for abalone, I think, wouldn't they? But it was true here too, the Aboriginal women were renowned divers, and you know, in colonial times often forced to, so a whole other thing, but brilliant at it. And these histories that aren't told often, they sort of have disappeared from main view. So it is it does strike me as powerful how you've become a conduit for some of these stories to find their way back to audiences like me, and then being able to map on to these other stories and see a more complete picture of uh well, like you're saying, other ways of being and sharing the space.

Easkey 46:11

Yeah, it's it's so important to kind of, I suppose, that isn't it, that remembering of where we've come from, who's come before, what we're inheriting, um, and then allowing it also. We talk about, I suppose, that culture, and but it's a dynamic it's a dynamic force, you know, allowing it to evolve because we're being continually shaped by something like the ocean. I'm so interested, I suppose, in that identity piece as well, because it having that connection to the sea creates such a strong sense of belonging. At a time in the world where there's such huge disconnect and loss, and people even you know losing connection to home place. Um and even for Irish people too, haven't gone to all corners of the world. But I don't think it's it's just this for me with the sea, realizing that to have that sense of belonging connected to the to water and to the ocean has been such a gift. Um yeah, so I'm I'm kind of interested in exploring that more as well.

Blue Health Science Beyond Academia

AJ 47:07

Yeah. So you took your scholarly time, you did your PhD and so forth. About the time you'd taken the big wave, no? Similar sort of time.

Easkey 47:15

Yeah, yeah.

AJ 47:17

That's a great probably a unique combo, easy, I I dare say. That you would that then you went on to write books and they got to be pretty high profile too, terrific books. So you found something in the power of sharing these stories, which for you was in the writing.

Easkey 47:36

Yeah, the writing one is a wonderful medium as well. And it's a I think it was always there as well. I think because being quite a reflective, maybe introspective kid. I mean, I had I kept a diary or a journal from probably age nine, and I had those boxes in the attic. Wow. But it was just my way of being able to process things I was I was experiencing, yeah, and then traveling. I always kept kept a journal as well. And I often like I travelled, okay, competed with the Irish surf team, but really from my late teens, early twenties, I travelled alone solo um around uh I suppose many, many parts of the world. At the time when it wasn't the especially for women, that pathway is like a free surfer, just there wasn't much to go on there. Um it was always at the time it was mostly men going off exploring waves and traveling by themselves. And that was that, but that's a very different experience as a man. Um, but I wanted to do that, and I didn't really have the I suppose at the time I was just uh not very patient, so I didn't want to wait around for everyone else to get their shit together and come travel with me. So I I just took off for years. Like I'll just go. So and then I you've done never very long by yourself. And once you rock up somewhere with a surfboard, and um and then when you're yeah, it creates this instant kind of at least talking point or connection. But I I also then I suppose I journaled as a way to document and capture my thoughts. And then I also would write. So uh I think the the writing part and getting published came early on with uh in the UK Surf Girl magazine had just got started, and it started as a supplement with with Carve magazine, and I knew the editor Louise, and so this is yeah, I I kind of would I'd message her and say, I mean I'm going to such and such a place, and and then I would write about the experience um and send send her the notes and and then find a photographer and gather up some photos. So it was that early days of surf journalism, I suppose, in a way. Um I look back on it. Um but it was really for me just a way to try to get a little bit of extra um a little bit of extra cash. But instead of having to compete, if I got this in a surf magazine and I could show my sponsors at the time who were certainly not paying me very much at all, but it was enough maybe to for me to get you know pay the next airfare. Yes. Um so I was just feeding the habit essentially and finding different ways to do that that were as creative as possible. And then I did come, yeah, I came back home that time, and I I just really wanted I traveled so much, I realized I actually knew much more maybe about coral reef systems in tropical waters than I did about my own North Atlantic waters and how are they doing and what's the health of the waters that I belong to at home. And I realized actually I need to be able to speak from that place first, and was kind of shocked at how little I did know. And so that's brought me on the path into then university and environmental science and real realizing actually we have incredible, obviously incredible waters here, and I always knew that, but very, very little protection and very, very little awareness of what we actually have on our doorstep because it's you know so cold you can't just stick your head in and go for a snorkel and see the whole world because you get a brain freeze. So nobody was doing that. And now the storytelling has come a long way. We have incredible documentaries of how alive our waters are, and it's really helping that movement for uh the campaign to protect um our coastal and uh ocean seas around Ireland, and the government have finally, finally just started to uh roll with a bill to eventually set up marine protected areas, and the deadline is 2030. So then we don't have long.

AJ 51:37

Right.

Easkey 51:38

But yeah.

AJ 51:38

So you is that to say, Is he that you that you do witness the power of story? That it's yeah, working?

Easkey 51:48

I th I really do think I believe in it for sure. Like and then so I went into research and was in for a long time in in the area that's become the one now is Blue Health. So that very interdisciplinary space that builds on worked like Wallace J. Nichols's book, this beautiful book, Blue Mind, that really brought that to into the forefront of public consciousness of this impact water has on our on our everything, our whole being, but especially our on our mind, our psychological well-being, our emotional state. And then looking at the science behind that is what I've been committed to for well over a decade now. But then you're in another institution like academia, too. It can uh the very thing you're kind of researching, essentially nature connection and and how that sense of relationship to place shapes who we are and how we feel. And then you're in this environment that really starting, it's it's such a disembodied experience. You're just treated as like your your head. Yeah. Your body is this thing that carries your head around, and your head does all the thinking. And you're and it's all about and it also is another very competitive space, very hierarchical, and it is all about, you know, this became much. It I don't know if it at the time I was doing it was becoming a lot more about, I suppose, this hyper-productivity of just this relentless pace and constant cycles of burnout that myself and my colleagues were were locked into. And I was like, this cannot be how we're like generating knowledge is so toxic to then communicate to people the benefit of something that's also then the very process of do you know what I'm trying to say? Yes, totally just seemed really messed, it seemed really messed up. And then it also seemed like it was uh we're operating in a bubble. So, yes, it was great to sort of dig into like the science with scientific method, and that's what I'm trained in. But it also felt like it was needing to break out and recognize this is not happening in a vacuum. Uh, and this knowledge isn't just new. I think a lot of how it was being framed was this, this became this new buzzword. And and I was like, just look around even in Ireland, and we have thousands of these holy wells, these sacred springs, like water has always been understood for its healing powers. Um, and yet this wasn't coming in into the research. Um I know it was very Western-centric view, even of what health is. And then, you know, I'm definitely for anything that helps close that gap between between people and and the living world. But I just thought there was, yeah, we're maybe missing a bit, and especially in the storytelling part, and and this need for other voices, other understandings, other ways of seeing. So I was curious then of how of weaving together some of my own life experience, the sort of scientific research, and then this deeper understanding, especially the more ancestral and indigenous worldview around our relationship, especially with water, uh, and the mythology, uh, language, all of it. So they just is there a way actually not to separate it all out, but what if we start bringing it all together? Um, I mean by doing that, I like might have completely like I, you know, I I never tend to follow a trajectory that's like a career path that's written out for me. And in academia, it's so like it's very driven that way where you stay and then you you climb this ladder essentially. In fact, jump right off the ladder back into the water. Um, so in terms of in the eyes of many at the time, I quote unquote ruined my career. But um I freed up a huge amount of creative space and then and then really discovered what I love doing most, which is writing, um, and then have written a number of books since just kind of exploring some of those threads.

AJ 55:37

Yeah.

Retreat Design From Iran To Ireland

AJ 55:38

And you've you also then kicked in with running multiple retreats, which I'm really curious about because I mean I so relate to these aspects of your journey. And most recently, uh a friend and colleague of mine in the States, Katie Ross is her name, we set up a week-long immersive journey that we invited people to for the first time this year. So we just ran it in March. Knowing how incredible it could be to get back into your full senses in a full living experience and not coming off, so you know, your devices and your other daily habits are to the side. And it it was it turned out as good as we could have imagined as well. So we we just announced the second running, which will be in March next year. And at the same time, it seems, you were doing one of yours in March this year, and then and then even one in April. So you've sort of got this string of them going, but of course focused on ocean. I mean, it's water, but but obviously you're ocean focused. I'm so curious how you came. I guess you've just told us the story of what probably motivated it, but what made you jump thinking, yeah, this is something I've got to do as well? And then how did you structure it? Like what did you set up for people?

Easkey 56:52

Yeah, I think it maybe first came about actually of what I do now here at at home and where I where I live and having those experiences and kind of and sharing that with others. I suppose that experiential piece of kind of taking it from okay, there's the research and then there's the story, maybe you read the book, and but how do you actually access that? And I've had such an incredible opportunity to access that from such an early age. I had to sort of peel back the layers and think about like well, you know, what what made it possible for me? What and what pathways are available to people, and how do we kind of address where where those barriers lie? Like in and then a lot of languages used, like grounded and embodied, and um, but what does that actually mean? Uh and we've lost so much of the kind of the practices, understandings, or rituals that would have uh the and the and the ability to even come together at in these collectives. Yes, or in in community in some shape or form, and and it there's a real absence of that. But for me, that probably the root of it began in the most unlikely place of all. It was in in Iran in the Middle East, and um back in God, it was over 10 years ago. So kind of from a period of around we first went in 2010 to 2016, so those five or six years. Uh it's a huge chapter in my life that has completely altered and transformed who I am, the path I've taken, this journey into deepening what I suppose that that Rel Sun kind of gift and message or early seed that got planted of surfing being more than just a sport and this capacity to connect across cultures and connect to something like the ocean that has such a sort of shaping force on who we are as humans on the planet, wherever we are. But in somewhere like Iran, too, it was incredible there to see that just that very thing play out of surfing being this connective tissue between such uh like disparate groups in many ways, um, bringing together a kind of crazy mix of humans. And and then experiencing surfing in a place like that for the first time. And it it's it's documented very well in a beautiful film called Into the Sea film by Marian Poiseau that we made back in 2013, released 2014, but capturing I suppose that moment of Iran's surf story. So there's this tiny bit of a stretch of coastline that we're starting to become more familiar with, unfortunately, for uh not so good reasons, but uh that part that's exposed to the Indian Ocean that it does it generate swell in Balochistan in particular, and there's a wonderful surf community there now. But and we first went, there was no one surfing, and we went with two amazing Iranian women who become then the pioneers, Shala and Mona, of the sport in their country, the sport of surfing, uh, which is now you know over a decade on. It's taken hold, they have a surfing association, a surf club, it's a mixed sport, men and women participate in it. Uh, but I'm going off piste here, but but just to say that was that was where going there is where I learned the, I suppose, the power of that kind of connection and also taking a different approach to surfing. Surfing really just being this vehicle or medium for something that was much more powerful and important, accessing that transformative and healing power of the ocean, the ability of the ocean to sort of act as this social leveler. And we went in the water developing this workshop along with Iranian female triathlete Shireen Garammi, who, you know, as a sportswoman and then understanding, I suppose, the experience of being an Iranian woman and blazing a trail, but also then being new to surfing, she just reminded me I needed to go back to that sort of like the beginner's mind and what was it like for me when I first started surfing? And it was just all about play, nothing about performance. We were lucky if you had a surfboard, so you may do with whatever. Um, and so all of that then became less important. It became much more about the feeling. And so we created this program called Be Like Water to help overcome a fear of water or these different sort of fears or anxieties we might hold around even starting to do something like surfing, especially in a female body, and just bringing that back to this really gentle connection, learning to be soft like water, starting out in a swimming pool, connecting with breath, with the body, building trust, and then bringing that element of play. And when we went to the beach, just body surfing. So no surfboard at all in the beginning. And then so slowly this program kind of developed. And we realized now there's you know a whole language around it. There's surf therapy, and um which I hadn't even heard about then, and there was, you know, there's safe spaces, and there's it's it's come so far as well. But that's really what we had, what I was experiencing with this little be like water workshop with these Iranian women, and what they were teaching me in reality. And I write about a little bit about that in my book, Saw Water in the Blood. And then coming home, and then especially after having kids of my own, and then the capacity to sort of travel more or being much more time constrained, made me realize actually, and then through their eyes, connecting more with home again and just the wonder of it, and the wonder even of what's literally on my doorstep led to then creating these other experiences of realizing actually these same, in a way, these same issues exist here. There's so many, especially, especially women, and around our bodies, of either fear around a mix of fear around water, shame of bodies, this this but feeling this yearning, longing, and then not having the capacity maybe to sort of access that in a way that feels safe and welcoming. And so, how do we create an experience then that um brings all of that together? And then offering it these, those beginning to offer those kind of workshops and retreats here at home has been really, really wonderful as well of just being able to, I suppose, experience that sense of who we are in a different way and connect more deeply uh with place and allowing water in a way to hold us and opening up this wonderful creative portal. So I often bring in you know creative practices and writing into that space too. Yeah. But it is really it's like it feels more like a sandbox, and I'm just kind of playing around in these different tools or modalities or processes that I realize I've been using and starting to unpack some of that and and look at what it would be like to share it. And then even I knew you were trying to access on the website, but it's on hold until next year. But that one writing with rock pools, of just realizing oh, we just spent time, like slowing down as well. I suppose that's the other big part of just hitting pause for a moment and slowing down enough to notice. And I've been doing a lot more of that, but especially through the eyes of again, it's when you're if you can get close to hanging out with kids, do it and remind yourself um of those small wonders, um, which is so needed right now, too. But looking at like the whole, I suppose the whole universe in a as this microcosm in a rock pool. And for me, connecting with that full circle moment as a child of when you first look into a rock pool and discover what's there, they're almost like alien creatures, like when you think about then they're so ancient. Yeah it's like the beginning, the origin of all life. Uh so there's so much to work with with just that. Um, instead of needing to go away off into the quote-unquote wilderness. Um, so there was that, and and playing then too with with concepts like there's a beautiful Gaelic fit phrase, fitchefu, um, which Irish philosopher John O'Donnehu kind of loosely translates as woven into and through each other. So it's how we're interwoven uh with one another, with the places that we belong to, um with nature. So there's no separation between the senses, self, nature, between worlds. Yeah.

AJ 1:05:08

Yeah, beautiful. So you've run these things typically sort of two, three days, and yeah, including things like the stories and all the other things you've you've outlined. And with groups of it seems sort of 10 to 12, which is about the size we had on the river as well. So I guess having run a few, how do they go? Like what effects do they have on people? What are you seeing? And I guess how does it shape what you want to do from here?

Easkey 1:05:34

Yeah, it's it's kind of remarkable. It's um I'm always amazed at how quickly if people almost like this, it's like I don't feel like it's anything terribly profine maybe that I offer except that it creates this permission space to just for people to and it by and I d there are. I do I do mixed mixed retreats as well as women over. Only ones, but typically it does tend to be more women than men that want to do that kind of inner work. But not always. But yet then they're they're and they're great. And I find too, if I do ones that are more interestingly, more like surf-focused, or it depends on the language used, I suppose. Yeah, that's interesting. Surf slash leadership. You can kind of trick maybe more into signing up. But yeah, we definitely probably need more men having these experiences too. Um, but it's it's just remarkable that the connection that happens and the depth of it so quickly, and how people are very quickly the layer we shed those layers of whatever has been making us feel kind of caught in our lives. So like that the layer of dizziness, the layer or these layers being illusions in a way. Uh time, uh, the different roles or personas we have to play, um, and just this incredible letting go that happens. And then this adding water into the mix, and you've probably seen this, is just it's unbelievable the difference. I I did another for a number of years of amazing, I suppose it's an alternative to a leadership retreat called Wavemaker, um, the Wave Maker Collective with Lindsay Hawken and Carlina Pereira in Portugal. Um, and they they still run that and they run it now for um, they offer it entirely free every year for ocean advocates. Um, but it was this idea, the very first exercise we did was we've got a lot of these leaders, CEOs, a whole mix of backgrounds, all quite high-powered, um, but a mix of water abilities. But the very first thing we would do is was go body surfing. So we'd go to the beach and we just it was like wave play. So there's no performance aspect to it, and I would surf boards again. And it was amazing what would happen. Just egos would immediately like dissipate, and it was this again, this social leveling, but the play part, you know, getting bashed around by the waves and washed up onto the shore, and it just opens people. Like, water is that amazing ability just to create this opening. Um, and then maybe because it's so sensory and tactile, and you're in that outdoor space too, people just open up so much more, even emotionally, to each other. There's this vulnerability piece where it's safe to be vulnerable because the ocean just exposes that kind of naturally, doesn't it? It's very humbling. Um yeah, so it was really, really beautiful part of the process. It's kind of a key ingredient. And this like just add water part is is the essential catalyst, I think.

AJ 1:08:34

Yeah. Oh, it's so interesting to hear you talk like that, Eiske, because this is what we found as well. And in fact, when we when we saw the calibre of person that was signing up to go to the river, we're like, wow, we could sit at these people's feet for the week. So the idea of even us, you know, being the experts that are going to come and give them what they need. So it was very clear it was going to be very light touch and let the river just do its thing. And yeah, so fascinating to hear that that was that critical thing for you that just having water in the mix does so much.

Easkey 1:09:08

Yeah. And in terms of letting it set the pace, like the river or the tides, or like that that's definitely the river or the ocean becomes your co-conspirator when you're creating something like that, and it's very much taking the lead off of those more natural elements that actually shape the experience. And and then finding ways, I think, to that doesn't feel overwhelming for people, but that they're able to weave some of that back into maybe their everyday. Um and then with water, we we come into contact with it every day, no matter what, otherwise it wouldn't survive. So it's even very simple, even mundane ways of creating those connections.

AJ 1:09:46

Right. So speaking of that piece though, where what happens after? Do you venture in there a lot? Do you do you sort of have cross-group um exchanges? Like, have you done anything on that sort of alumni, as it were, level?

Easkey 1:10:05

It's really interesting. I often have people come back um for the same experience again, which is always different.

AJ 1:10:12

Yeah, right.

Easkey 1:10:12

It's never the same. Um and then, yeah, there are there's been some cases where there is like uh groups have kind of stayed alive, say maybe you know, through being very active with say on WhatsApp, but also a lot of cross-pollination will happen with people who who come. And then there's loads of very unex you know, unexpected ways that people will uh or threads as a result of having come together. And then I've also kind of trusted, um, for me and being just that limited time capacity as well as a kind of relatively new mom, of not maybe having the energy to do a lot of the follow-up work a lot of the time. And then maybe sometimes that's even too much for people. But and then there there's that energy in the immediate aftermath of wanting more. Of I've and sometimes I find I've just I even offered to people actually just to actually let it all go. Like what just trust actually that what you've experienced is going to surface, maybe you know, next week, month, or even next year, or um what you need from it um will come and not try to go and and seek it or pin it down too hard. So I've I've done I've done a mix of both, and I've actually found that sometimes the more powerful thing is to actually step back and give it space and not rush in to um like actually have a very slow digestion um and and then see what comes. And that's often then seasonally for me, I it kind of it happens, I think, in a somewhat intentional way with with when I run these, tends to be around ones around the spring equinox, one around it kind of on that cusp of entering summer. So it's that kind of rising energy, bringing people together, opening up this space of possibility, and then and then seeing where that lands. And then usually I come into sort of the autumn winter, and it's sort of going back and revisiting it almost then of seeing seeing how it all worked or what what actually is emerging from it all. So actually giving it a lot of time and space. And I tend not to run them in the autumn and winter because I know the surf's gonna be really good, and I don't want to be stuck to any schedule. But I do I do offer online then it's kind of in in more of a slow kind of um writing a reflective practice in the depths of winter, I find work really well just after that sow and um crossover into autumn into winter um is really lovely, but it we can work really well online too. It always surprises me.

AJ 1:12:52

Yeah, really. There you go. That's interesting.

Easkey 1:12:54

Yeah.

Reciprocity Mothering And Ocean Care

AJ 1:12:56

So you have you know, when when I was watching the foreign correspondent episode and you were introduced as a marine sociologist, that's what that was that was the trigger for me. It was like, what? This I have to know more about. And so I'm so curious then, the depths of that. Like what what has dawned on you in the depths of this space that you've found yourself occupying in terms of Sure, in terms of water health, human health, even as it extends to spirituality, like the full kit for you. How how do you think about it? How do you put words to it now? And I guess do you see that come out in these retreats, or are you still thinking, hmm, what can I experiment with next?

Easkey 1:13:48

Yeah, I think, yeah, I recall many things. So it's when I was studying and doing my PhD, there wasn't even a you know, the more commonly one now is like marine social scientists looking at human relationships with the sea and how the ocean shapes who we are, um, its impact on us, and vice versa. And you know, there's a whole um, it's become a whole sort of area, this interdisciplinary field now, or marine sociologist, or even uh marine social ecologist. Um basically, yeah, this sort of looking at that, basically that relational connection. And for me, I just think yeah, a lot of it now is around how just these different ways of how we how do we care for these places that we live with that shape us, that are flowing through us, you know, these this sense of belonging to a watershed or a body of water that have all become part of us. And this that I'm interested in that reciprocity piece. So for me, it's by you create that sense of relationship or connection, it's so that you then feel moved, right, to want to also care. And it's very hard in a society where that, especially becoming a mother, realizing wow, these values are really not upheld or considered worthy at all in in the era of modernity that we find ourselves in. But it's uh and then really living into this as a as a mother too, of this thinking of it actually more in a metaphorical way, I suppose. But our relationship with the ocean, the ocean being the thing that's mothered mothered us all into existence. It's like the birthplace of all life, and we all begin water or begin life in water. It's literally shaping us and protecting us as we grow in the amnion, which is like salt water. Yeah, right. And you know, we breathe because oceans breathe. We're sustained by waters that are older than memory. And and so for me, then motherhood becomes less a title and more of a practice, and it definitely feels like a practice to me because I'm just like learning on the job every day. But about this mothering, if we think about it as this ultimate form of sustaining conditions in which another life can flourish, which the city has done for millions of years. So, how do we that's where I'm at right now? How do we then, you know, this power of that word to mother, mothering, and I know it can be it can be incredibly triggering, but I'm talking about it in terms of the way of how we might all access this deeper form of care, um, this more ecological understanding of it, um, of mother itself as a verb. I know there's a lot of people writing about that in particular, but seeing just seeing that merge so powerfully in in the ocean. Um, and that's those those cycles of renewal. Um and it's about this can work of creating the conditions for life to flourish. So, and how are we going about doing that? Like the way what are we, what do we kind of like, what do we contribute as an active kind of species that belong to an ecosystem rather than just seeing ourselves as a destructive force. Um, yeah, and I know there's others writing about this kind of ecological mothering is this relationship of reciprocity that goes far beyond biological kin uh and even you know gender and species, but that responsibility to nurture and support. Uh I think we we really do have that as as Homo sapiens, that responsibility, but it belongs that capacity I do think believe belongs to everyone. Yeah. And then and then my work and why I maybe do what I do, it's also about learning to listen deeply. That you know, you can't for me to be present, especially that importance of presence with my kids. I can't do that if I'm in busy mode or uh in buying into this relentless pace of life, and uh having to just live in a different rhythm that's just more nature-based, you know, through them realizing, gosh, we are solar beings, like they're just so attuned to night and day, sun, moon, energy of water. They're just you're innately drawn to these things. So it's just a wonderful reminder, the power of that, of that importance of full-body presence, especially in the face of such a challenge, a time of such uncertainty.

AJ 1:18:17

Yeah, well said. Yeah, that um couple of things you said there, like that coming back to our waters, like even knowing what comes out of your tap, like where that's coming from and and what state it's in. Yeah, I even even for me, and I guess for you, it's certainly true that I've learned or I am learning a bucket load since we started just running these things by like other river stuff is coming to me, and I'm an ocean guy, so I'm like, why am I doing river stuff? I don't know, it's sort of following the the flow of it. Yeah, I love it. And of course, as one watery person said to me, Claire Vanderplank up the road here, she founded a thing called the WA Water Alliance, and she said, Ah, it's all the same. Of course it is. But I've learned so much because it's just it's like it's gravitating other people's efforts, be it in film or you with your work. It's blown the lid off in an area that, yeah, I thought I was relatively familiar in a way. Um certainly viscerally familiar, but this in this now with such connective tissue and and deepening of my understanding. So it's a hell of a process, isn't it? Nominally as the person who sets the thing up, but but what you learn, I guess everything you felt in Iran that got you going.

Easkey 1:19:33

Yeah. Yeah.

Patti Smith And People Power

AJ 1:19:34

So, Isky, you mentioned music before. You are an artist, your old man's a valuable artist as well, and and that's all part of your work. And I figured music had to be in your life somewhere as well. And and you mentioned it before, even in terms of the fascinating connections that you've observed across cultures. But I'd love to ask you: is there a piece of music or artist, musical artist that's been special to you in your life?

Easkey 1:20:00

Yeah, well, for me, you should ask, because it literally just came back from a Patty Smith gig in the hallway here in Ireland, which was just incredible. It was like being in the presence of uh, you know, an absolute goddess, just sort of like an altered shamanic experience when you're with her. But wow, really blowing away. Yeah, really wow. Like what a you know, she's definitely our you know modern day prophet poet and everything in between. Uh but 79 and just the energy on stage, like it I've never experienced anything like it. Um, that ferocity she has um and and joy kind of mixed together. But the yeah, the song I wanted to share is the the one that she closed with the encore uh People Have the Power. And it was just like as a as an anthem for these times. Yeah, people have the power to remind yourselves that. Yeah.

AJ 1:21:01

Magic. What power in the elders, hey?

Easkey 1:21:05

Yeah, yeah.

AJ 1:21:06

As well.

Easkey 1:21:07

Yeah. Yeah, I just felt so lucky to be alive when she's doing that and to have been there for that.

AJ 1:21:13

Right. Yeah.

Easkey 1:21:14

It's lighting something up in all of us.

AJ 1:21:17

Yeah, like it's sort of where we started. Not that Rel or Munkan lived to be that old, really sadly, but but those presences.

Easkey 1:21:25

Yeah, yeah, and the yeah, what we what we leave behind. How to be a good ancestor, if we wanted to sum it up.

AJ 1:21:33

Yeah, right.

Easkey 1:21:34

Yeah, as the through line.

AJ 1:21:36

Beautiful touch point.

Easkey 1:21:38

Yeah.

AJ 1:21:39

Oh, Isky, it's been awesome having a chat. Thanks a lot. I've loved connecting and hearing about your work and being able to talk about it so freely today. Thanks.

Easkey 1:21:47

Yeah, likewise. Really have. Hopefully, we can keep the connection going. Uh, love to stay in touch. Thank you.

AJ 1:21:53

Yeah, would love to.

Easkey 1:21:54

Yeah, I want to hear more about this con confluence as well. There's loads of good rivers here. That need a lot of care.

AJ 1:22:03

Well, that's it. Hey, and we've run the first two, well, one and we will, on the Murray River, so Australia's longest. Just it's a long story right around why that was the starting point. But because my friend who's running it with me is is from the States. So she is fond of putting the question out to people what river should be next, anywhere?

Easkey 1:22:22

Yeah, okay, I can nominate a few.

AJ 1:22:25

What comes off the top of your head? Land one on us.

Easkey 1:22:27

Well, obviously, we've got the River Shannon is our you know, the longest river. And you know, from Monkan's work, he's always quick to point out that rivers in Ireland, all our names come from uh a goddess. So they're not named after a goddess. All the rivers were believed to be a goddess. So representing that life force, that energy. Um, so it's uh a great starting point, I think, for any any kind of experience or journey.

AJ 1:22:54

Dear me, you've you will have absolutely stirred her soul with that one. I'm gonna hear more about this. But yeah, I've I'm feeling like um my first visit, indeed, it would be to Ireland. It won't obviously be to Manchán as I thought it might, but as the family tree extends back and I feel more into who these people are, um, yeah, it's calling. Thank you. And thanks again, Easkey. It's been terrific. Thanks a lot.

Easkey 1:23:22

Yeah, thank you so much.

Support The Podcast And Farewell

AJ 1:23:25

That was Surfer, Writer, and Marine Social Scientist, Easkey Britton. For more on her books, art, retreats, and everything else, links are in the show notes. If you're enjoying the podcast, I hope you'll consider becoming a paid subscriber on Patreon or Substack with some writing too. This episode was only possible with your support. So thanks very much for your three years of support on Patreon now to three more brilliant women Jo Donaldson, Nicole Masters, and dear lifelong friend Lucci. And thank you all for sharing, rating, and reviewing the podcast. The music you're hearing is Regeneration by Amelia Barden. My name's Anthony James. Thanks for listening.