Craig Foster is a co-founder of the Sea Change Trust and one of the world’s leading natural history filmmakers. He has dedicated himself to learning the secrets of the Great African Seaforest—the inshore kelp habitat at the South West tip of Africa, his underwater home. His film My Octopus Teacher (winner of the Academy Award and BAFTA, nominated for an Oscar) follows the story of his year with a wild octopus, at the same time honoring his pact to dive 365 times a year. Through this regular intensive immersion, he has uncovered a plethora of new animal behaviors and species, one of the species is a shrimp which has been named after him: Heteromysis fosteri. He has founded the Sea Change Project to share his love of nature with others, and has also co-authored the book, Underwater Wild: My Octopus Teacher's Extraordinary World.

In this episode of Intersections, Prof. Hitendra Wadhwa has a conversation with Craig Foster on the topic “The Extraordinary Lessons We Can Learn from an Octopus.”

What wisdom can we receive from developing deep connections with an octopus and other life forms in the marine world? Could a friendship with a member of another species teach us more about life, our relationships and our humanity, than our books, TV and other media? What if the subtle science and mysteries of nature could be discovered in our own backyard? And what life lessons could we draw from tracking wild animals?

“Since the beginning of time, we've had these intimate relations with wild animals and that's been completely cut off...It was so fascinating for me when I started to re-establish some of these relationships with these wild animals in the water here. I noticed some of my human relationships changing.”

Craig Foster

This episode offers key insights on:

• Why developing intimacy with wild nature and other sentient beings improves human relationships and helps us lead more conscious lives
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• How learning to track wild animals can advance our own work, life and leadership
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• The potential for discovering the subtle science and mysteries of nature in familiar surroundings