1KHO 603: Nature is a Time Capsule for Our Memories | Eryn Lynum, Rooted in Wonder

The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast

Ginny Yurich

Parenting, Kids & Family

4.9 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 23 October 2025

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Wonder doesn’t vanish—we just forget how to see it. In this conversation, master naturalist and author Eryn Lynum shows how kids can reboot ours: inviting us to become “collectors of sunrises,” to trade a single scrolling hour for sky, creek, and trail, and even to bring the wild indoors with bird feeders, houseplants, and the surprisingly magical fish tank. She explains why nature imprints our memories so intensely—through scent, sound, and touch—and how a simple ritual like a “quiet hike” helps families slow down enough to notice flickers’ wingbeats, rabbits in the brush, and those blink-and-you-miss-it moments kids beg us to see. Time, it turns out, is the real terrain. Before the light bulb, people slept about eleven hours; today we try to stretch each day past its natural rhythm while children spend an estimated 22% of childhood on devices—roughly 205 waking weeks—compared to just 4.5 weeks outside. Eryn offers a hopeful reset: treat screens like invasive plants, remove a little each day, and let outdoor hours compound—because one hour outside makes the next one easier, richer, and more alive. Heed the invitations (“Come see this!”), lose track of the clock together, and watch your family’s curiosity—and capacity for rest—grow. Get a copy of Rooted in Wonder here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast.
0:02.5	My name is Ginny Erit, and the founder of 100 hours outside, and I have a guest on today
0:05.9	that I've had her book for a while, and we're just now connecting, and I'm so excited that we're connecting. Erin Lyon, welcome. Thank you. Thanks so much for having me. Okay, I have her older book, but you have a newer book out and more books coming out, And you have an incredible podcast called the Nat Theo podcast, Nature Lessons, Rooted in the Bible.
0:22.2	But the book I've read is your first book.
0:24.4	It's called Ruted in Wonder, Nurturing Your Family's Faith through God's Creation. And then you have a book out that came, that came out this year called The Nature of Rest and Devotionals and a kid's book that's coming out next year. And this is really near and dear to my heart,
0:38.4	Aaron. Like we talk a lot about how getting outside helps kids with their brains and it helps them
0:44.7	with their eyesight and it helps them with their physical bodies and their social skills and it helps
0:48.9	them emotionally. But it also helps them spiritually because I believe and you believe that God displayed so much of
0:56.8	his wonder and so many of his principles through his creation.
1:00.4	And so when we talk about kids who are not getting outside that much, they are getting
1:04.8	less opportunity to be exposed to the amazingness of God and all of these principles.
1:10.1	So can you talk about your backstory here?
1:12.9	You are a master naturalist as well as having a degree in Bible studies. But you say you weren't
1:19.4	like super interested in nature until your kids kind of rekindled that in you. What's the story there?
1:26.0	Yeah, I grew up spending a lot of time outdoors, camping and
1:29.3	hiking with my family, but somewhere along the line, I really just lost that enammer with the outdoors.
1:35.3	And I think that happens to a lot of us as we get older, that wonder with being outside kind of
1:41.5	tarnishes. And so that's where I was at. And then as our kids were
1:45.7	getting older, we have four. Our boys are now 14, 12, and 10, and our daughter is seven.
1:51.2	And as they were getting older coming into like elementary age, you know, as we took them outside,
1:56.8	I saw this profound connection, like this deeper level of something going on there. And I wanted to know
2:03.3	what was going on, this spiritual connection. And so as we're spending more time outdoors as a family,
	...

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