Where To Next? By Dan Kieran

This was an unexpected joy. Mike Warwick, who has taken over presenting duties on Where To Next? while I record my second series, asked if I would like to co-interview Tom Blue Wolf, a storyteller, indigenous elder and earthkeeper. Appropriately enough, Tom’s book The Great Remembering is a beautiful reminder of the wisdom that humans seem to understand intuitively in all cultures where their ancestral link is unbroken. Tom lives in a place his ancestors have called home for thirty thousand years. This is the first of two episodes, and I will add the second next week. You can listen to all of Mike’s episodes of the show in the archive section of the Do Lectures Radio app that you can download here. Mike and I are enjoying what my wife affectionately refers to as a ‘bro-mance’ so expect more shows from us together in the future. We are beginning to think about doing some live with an audience as well. And we are planning a Where To Next? Workshop (currently titled How To Become a Real Human Being) that will take place in London in May. More details on that soon I hope. Till next week!Much love, Dan This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dankieran.substack.com/subscribe

The hunter gatherer paradise that was Mesolithic in Britain comes to an end as two waves of farmers arrive from 4,000 BC, bringing with them a new technology and way of life. This is the sixteenth episode of my Do Lectures Radio Series Where To Next? A new episode is released every Monday. The week after each episode is aired I put it up here on my Substack to create a series archive for those who discover it in the future and want to go back to the start, and for those who want to re-listen to the wisdom of my guests that does seems to bloom on a second and third listening. That has been the case for me, anyway. This episode was first broadcast on Do Radio on December 22nd.As always, please share it with anyone you think might find it illuminating.Much love,Dan This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dankieran.substack.com/subscribe

While I’m taking a break from travelling around the country to record my interview episodes, John Grigsby and I got together to have a series of conversations about what it means to be English and to belong in the nation known as Britain. In these sessions we track when people first arrived here after the last ice age nearly twelve thousands years ago, and from when these islands have been continuously populated ever since. We journey through our Hunter gatherer ancestors of the mesolithic to the beginnings of the neolithic when Britain was still connected to Europe by a bridge of land known as Doggerland. Using a mix of archeology, anthropology, myth and our own imaginations we try to make sense of where we, the English, originally came from. This is the fourteenth episode of my Do Lectures Radio Series Where To Next? A new episode is released every Monday. The week after each episode is aired I put it up here on my Substack to create a series archive for those who discover it in the future and want to go back to the start, and for those who want to re-listen to the wisdom of my guests that does seems to bloom on a second and third listening. That has been the case for me, anyway. This episode was first broadcast on Do Radio on December 8th. As always, please share it with anyone you think might find it illuminating.Much love,Dan This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dankieran.substack.com/subscribe

This is the second episode of the series so far where it is just me and no guest. I hope this will not come across as self indulgent, but in this episode I wanted to pull together some of the things we have learned from my guests in the series so far, and also to tee-up, as it were, next week’s episode with Iain McGilchrist. Iain is one of my intellectual heroes and rather than ask him to repeat what he has said about his ideas on so many other programmes, I wanted to dive straight into a conversation with him assuming that the audience listening are already familiar with his work. To that end I have spent some of this week’s episode explaining as best I can his ideas about the way the two hemisphere’s of the brain interpret reality. And his contention that our society has become so left-brain oriented in it’s thoughts and actions that we, in the West, are losing touch with what it means to be human.Obviously it’s better to go to the source of these ideas rather than listen to me doing my best to explain them, so if you prefer you can head over to Iain’s comprehensive website and hear from the man himself.This is the eleventh episode of my Do Lectures Radio Series Where To Next? A new episode is released every Monday. The week after each episode is aired I put it up here on my Substack to create a series archive for those who discover it in the future and want to go back to the start, and for those who want to re-listen to the wisdom of my guests that does seems to bloom on a second and third listening. That has been the case for me, anyway. This episode was first broadcast on DO Radio on November 17th 2025. As always, please share it with anyone you think might find it illuminating!Much love,Dan This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dankieran.substack.com/subscribe

Those who have been following my journey in this series so far will know that while researching a new book a few years ago, I set myself the challenge of finding out when we, as a species, began to separate ourselves from nature. It seems reasonably well accepted that for the vast majority of our existence as a species, homo sapiens were nomadic, lived in matrilineal clans and had no hierarchies or power over others of any kind. Today we obviously live in sedentary, patriarchal and hierarchical societies where power over others is accepted as necessary by most people. I wanted to know what caused us to shift from one way of life to the other and how our disconnection from nature might have contributed to this change.Pretty quickly I came across one of John’s lectures that he gave to the Radical Anthropology Group at UCL. The lecture took the audience through John’s PhD, about how many neolithic monuments that archeologists have assumed were built in alignment with the movement of the sun were actually built in alignment with the movement of stars in the ancient skies instead. John is also an expert in mythology and his work argues that these monuments could also be linked to Proto-Indo- European myth where women were not only seen as equals with men, but considered closer to nature because of menstruation. This link with the phases of the moon perhaps accounting for the matrilineal nature of our hunter gatherer ancestors ways of life. It’s mesmerising stuff that completely frazzled my mind (in a good way) and after interviewing Sharon Blackie, John seemed to me to be the natural person to go and visit next. I actually recorded two episodes with John. In this first one we went for a walk to a henge near where he grew up and chatted around the subject of where we came from and what an indigenous knowledge in Britain might mean. In the episode I will share next week we sat down to do a more traditional style interview. I have learned so much from John, and it’s a real pleasure to share his ideas with you all through these two episodes. This is the ninth episode of my Do Radio Series Where To Next? A new episode is released every Monday. The week after each episode is aired I put it up here on my Substack to create a series archive for those who discover it in the future and want to go back to the start, and for those who want to re-listen to the wisdom of my guests that does seems to bloom on a second and third listening. That has been the case for me, anyway. This episode was first broadcast on DO Radio on October 27th 2025.As always, please share it with anyone you think might find it illuminating.Much love,Dan This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dankieran.substack.com/subscribe

This week’s episode is a bit different as there is no guest. I recorded it when I was camping in the Summer and the Observer newspaper ran an article - effectively the obituary - of Unbound, the business I co-founded and ran between 2011 and 2022. The idea of sharing this episode makes me uncomfortable for lots of reasons, but I ended up going ahead because the producers at Do Radio said it was the best one I have done yet. I’m not sure I agree with them (!) but I do think that this is the kind of moment most entrepreneurs fear the most and one that they very rarely share. For the record, I was not involved in the running of the business in the three years prior to its collapse and so I have nothing to share on how or why it failed, but the sad truth is that many people lost out when it did. People who earned money were not paid what they were owed, and this is the cardinal sin for any business and especially a publisher. In the episode I make it clear that focussing on what I was going through was and is not intended to trivialise the horrible circumstances many authors and suppliers found themselves in after the business collapsed. But the fact I experienced the business failing so publicly while recording a series about focussing on a life of meaning rather than success meant I felt I could not simply ignore it.This is the seventh episode of my Do Radio Series Where To Next? A new episode is released every Monday. The week after each episode is aired I put it up here on my Substack to create a series archive for those who discover it in the future. This episode was first broadcast on DO Radio on October 13th 2025.Next week things return to normal and I will share my conversation with the wonderful author and mythologist Dr Sharon Blackie who I visited in Cumbria. Much love,Dan This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dankieran.substack.com/subscribe

This is the fifth episode of my Do Radio Series Where To Next? A new episode is released every Monday. The week after each episode is aired I put it up here on my Substack to create a series archive for those who discover it in the future and want to go back to the start, and for those who want to re-listen to the wisdom of my guests that does seems to bloom on a second and third listening. That has been the case for me, anyway. This episode was first broadcast on DO Radio on September 29th 2025.In this episode I speak with two of the Directors of the Realisation Festival. Ed Haddon, who works as a coach with entrepreneurs, and Jonathan Rowson who writes The Joyous Struggle here on Substack and runs Perspectiva. Ed, who I had not heard of before we met, and I had a fascinating conversation about sitting with discomfort after a big life change and how shallow the achievement of goals can feel. After that I went in search of a grotto on the estate and then I sat down beneath a majestic oak tree to chat with Jonathan, whose work I have long admired. I discovered Jonathan after seeing him interview Iain McGilchrist. Jonathan’s organisation Perspectiva are also the publishers of Iain’s two volume masterpiece The Matter With Things. Those who have read my book The Idle Traveller will know how important Iain’s work has been to my life, but more on that in a later episode. I shared with Jonathan the stage of life I am exploring, and how I was trying to make sense of the encounter I had with a stag in Raasay. He offered some thoughts on his own journey towards the sacred, how unsettling it can be to feel you are leaving rationality behind and why other ways of consciousness are often more appropriate than a purely materialist point of view. Jonathan also shared an idea he was exploring from Freya Matthews called Ontopoetics, the idea that there is a field of meaning entangled with the physical world that accounts for serendipity, synchronicities and coincidences.This episode is a real cracker and has played a huge part in the evolution of my own thinking. I hope you enjoy it, and please share the episode with anyone you think will find it illuminating. Much love,DanWhere to Next? Episode 5 - Ed Haddon and Jonathan Rowson. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dankieran.substack.com/subscribe

This is the third episode of my Do Radio Series Where To Next? A new episode is released every Monday. The week after each episode is aired I put it up here on my Substack to create a series archive for those who discover it in the future and want to go back to the start, and for those who want to re-listen to the wisdom of my guests that does seems to bloom on a second and third listening. That has been the case for me, anyway. This episode was first broadcast on DO Radio on September 15th 2025.James is a wonderful and wise man and his book The Middle Passage - From Misery to Meaning in Midlife was a life raft for me when I began my own journey to prioritise meaning in life rather than success. There is so much wisdom in this conversation with James. He has also written an amazing book on relationships called The Eden Project and a book about the wounding of men called Under Saturn’s Shadow, which I would also recommend. Please share this episode with anyone you know who is entering midlife or who is going through a period of profound change. Much love, Dan This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dankieran.substack.com/subscribe

This is the second episode of my Do Radio Series Where To Next? A new episode is released every Monday. The week after each episode is aired I put it up here on my Substack to create a series archive for those who discover it in the future and want to go back to the start, and for those who want to re-listen to the wisdom of my guests that does seems to bloom on a second and third listening. That has been the case for me, anyway. This episode was first broadcast on DO Radio on September 8th 2025.Thank you so much for your support, which is crucial for me to be able to continue making the show. I have recorded eight episodes so far, with many more exciting guests organised between now and Christmas. I’m also thrilled to say that Iain McGilchrist has agreed to appear on the show and I can’t wait to go and visit him up in Scotland later this year.Now back to this episode. I went to see Mark Vernon at his home in South London at the end of May and we had a wonderful conversation about William Blake (Mark’s new book on Blake is available here ), Owen Barfield, serendipity and the Realisation Festival that Mark is also involved in. All of Mark’s books and his latest event appearances can be found on his website hereThere were so many fascinating takeaways from the conversation. I particularly enjoyed the way Mark explained Blake’s work that has made a huge difference to how I now make sense of him. He also showed me how Blake saw the imagination not as something inside our heads that we have but as something outside of us we can receive, which reflected an idea I spoke about in my Do lecture about ideas a decade ago. We also discussed the continuum of experience we travel back and forth along every day of our lives, with rationality at one end and the more sacred and mystical experiences at the other. Mark encourages us to venture away from rationality alone and live more in the middle, which is something I have been doing ever since. Mark is a wonderful man and an incredibly smart thinker with a range of perspectives taking in physics, theology and philosophy and he is able to roam within all three at once while talking. You will learn a huge amount from this episode. Enjoy!Much love, DanFollowing The Stag by Dan Kieran is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and help me fund my Do Radio show, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dankieran.substack.com/subscribe

This is the first episode of my Do Radio Series Where To Next? A new episode is released every Monday. The week after each episode is aired I put it up here on my Substack to create a series archive for those who discover it in the future and want to go back to the start, and for those who want to re-listen to the wisdom of my guests that does seems to bloom on a second and third listening. That has been the case for me, anyway. This episode was first broadcast on DO Radio on September 1st 2025.Thank you so much for your support, which is crucial for me to be able to continue making the show. I have recorded seven episodes so far, with many more exciting guests organised between now and Christmas.I visited Martin back in April 2025, as the country was beginning to rouse itself from Winter and start the languid stroll into Spring. My journey with the programme was just beginning and, in retrospect, I could not have had a better guide to set me on my way. I did not intend for the series to unfold in the way that it has, but I can see now that meeting Martin has helped steer what it has subsequently become and I’m very grateful for his generosity in agreeing to be my first interview. Not least because it was very speculative at the time as neither the series or indeed Do Radio itself existed at the time. It’s important to me to go and visit the people I’m interviewing in person where possible because there is something about travelling to see them that changes me and how I show up in the conversation. It’s almost as if I pick up breadcrumbs of meaning in the act of journeying towards them. I see that journey both as an act of respect to them, but also as a gift for me. As a stay at home dad, the chances to get out and about are rare for me these days and I enjoy journeying to different parts of the country.For those keen to know more about Martin and his work, he can be found here on his Substack, which I strongly recommend and here on his website where you can find out about all his books and events. As I mentioned in the episode, the first book of Martin’s I read was Courting The Wild Twin, which gave me a mythological framework for un-nameable and strange instincts I had begun to feel and was finding overwhelming in my life. It was the perfect entry point into his work. I then read Bardskull and Scatterlings both of which I found challenging, inspiring, nourishing and enlightening too. I have recently ordered Stag Cult, which will make sense if you know about the encounter with a stag that indirectly set me off on this quest. I will report back on that once it arrives. In the meantime, I would love to know your thoughts on the episode. It’s my first attempt at this kind of thing and while I have much to learn, I really enjoyed getting to grips with the equipment and having a go at editing and producing the programme. It’s a bit low-fi as a result. Apologies for that. Any tips and suggestions on potential interview subjects are very welcome. Thanks for listening and, as always, let me know what you think.DanFollowing The Stag by Dan Kieran is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and help me fund making my Do Radio show, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dankieran.substack.com/subscribe

I’ve had a busy couple of weeks writing a comic novella (!) and editing my first three programmes for Do Radio, that I now think will be aired in September. I will let you know the TX date as soon as I do. I’ve also been reading Awake! William Blake and the Power of the Imagination by Mark Vernon (it’s fantastically good and I would recommend both to Blake aficionados and those who are just curious) and a few more chapters of Iain McGilchrist’s The Matter With Things, which has ben teaching me about the role each hemisphere of the brain plays in the way we understand reality (specifically atoms and waves).And this weekend I’m going to the Realisation Festival on the Saturday to do more interviews. I can’t wait!Dan This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dankieran.substack.com/subscribe

This week I’m heading up to London to record my third interview for the Do Radio programme I’m recording to speak to Mark Vernon. Mark is a fascinating author and speaker on all kinds of subjects as a result of his wide ranging adventures in the academic disciplines of Physics, Theology and Philosophy. He’s also got a new book coming out about William Blake that I can’t wait to read. This week’s video touches the surface of Mark’s excellent book and I pull out a couple of things in it that have sent my mind off in interesting directions. More next week.Thanks for reading / watching. DanThe Autotelic by Dan Kieran is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dankieran.substack.com/subscribe

This weeks video update includes behind the scenes info on how my Do Radio project is going. I also re-discovered an interview I did with James Hollis whose book introduced me to the Carl Jung’s theory of the two adulthoods. I’ve also just announced a LinkedIn Live about the book on leadership I’m writing called Lead Like a River. In the session I’ll be explaining the importance of what I call your Origin Myth, the story you use to articulate why you are doing what you are doing in your professional life. This is designed for entrepreneurs, but is just as relevant for everyone else whatever work you do. The LinkedIn Live registration link is here.Thanks for watching. More next week.Dan This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dankieran.substack.com/subscribe