On this episode of “Death in The Garden,” we discuss Finite and Infinite Games: a Vision of Life as Play and Possibility by the late professor of religion, James P. Carse. We wanted to discuss this book because there’s a great difference between the pop-culture reception of this book and some of the deeper themes, which pertain profoundly to worldviews and how they cause us to interface with the living world in one way or another. We discuss the issues with some of the pop-culture explanations, as popularized by Simon Sinek, and delve deeper into the lesser known topics that are touched on in the book. We discuss a more nuanced understanding of finite and infinite games, players, and the worldviews associated with each. We talk about how death is conceived within each worldview, as well as how Carse is inconsistent on this topic within the book. We discuss artistry, poeisis, and what it means to be a infinite player, inspiring people to express their genius rather than “winning” the game of creativity. We go over the difference between society and culture; what waste represents; and how our relationship with nature is oppositional under the finite worldview. We talk about the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, as well as sharing a few personal stories. Ultimately, we discuss the difference between the machine and the garden within this framework (and how that applies to our project), and we really try to expand on what people typically understand as finite and infinite games to give this framework the gravity it deserves.

To listen to the full episode, upgrade your subscription to “paid” for only $5 a month or join us on Patreon. It’s the best way to support the podcast, our short films, and the writing we’re producing. It takes a lot of expense, time, and energy to produce this project, so every bit helps! Thank you to everyone who is already supporting us.

Death in The Garden is a listener-supported project. To support the us, consider becoming paid subscriber.

Use coupon code DITG20 for 20% off your order, and try out The Beekeeper’s Granddaughter Whipped Tallow Balms today!

We’re for hire! Check out our videography website to check out our show reel and connect with us about video and documentary work.

Mentions:

On this episode of “Death in The Garden,” we discuss the incredibly fascinating, profound, and instructive book, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World by Iain McGilchrist. Following a similar structure to the book, we first talk about what brain lateralization is; what the difference between the left and right hemisphere is (along with the misconceptions); the importance of attention, metaphor, and theory of mind; and then we talk about why this concept of left brain dominance (with right brain primacy) is so important. We then dive into the history as McGilchrist lays it out in his expansive book, showing the oscillation between the right hemisphere being respected, and the left hemisphere taking control. Always orienting towards the distinction between manifestions of right and left hemisphere attitudes and behaviors, we discuss antiquity, Ancient and Classical Greece, Rome, the Renaissance and Reformation, the Enlightenment, Romanticism and the Industrial Revolution, Modernism and Postmodernism, ending on today, where the left hemisphere (which governs our impulse towards mechanical thinking, control, quantification, objectivication, among so many other qualities) has taken dominion, leaving our humanity and earth systems imperiled. Of course, we talk about death, and the fear of death, and its profound role in all of this, as the left hemisphere abhors death and all that is uncertain. We then discuss what we might be able to do in the face our awareness of this incredibly potent phenomenon, and how we might again, allow the right hemisphere to resume its rightful place as Master.

This book is profoundly important (perhaps one of the most important books of our time), so please buy it, read it, and come to your own conclusions.

To listen to the full episode, upgrade your subscription to “paid” for only $5 a month. It’s the best way to support the podcast, our short films, and the writing we’re producing. It takes a lot of expense, time, and energy to produce this project, so every bit helps! Thank you to everyone who is already supporting us.

Use coupon code DITG20 for 20% off your order, and try out The Beekeeper’s Granddaughter Whipped Tallow Balms today!

We’re for hire! Check out our videography website to check out our show reel and connect with us about video and documentary work.

Mentions:

On this episode of “Death in The Garden,” we had the pleasure of interviewing Helena Norberg-Hodge, linguist, author, and filmmaker behind the incredible localization organization, Local Futures. She has written several books, such as Ancient Futures and Local is Our Future: Steps to an Economics of Happiness.

In this expansive interview we discuss the broad impacts of globalization and development and how it has atomized our society, standardized our cultural diversity, and laid waste to the biodiversity of the ecosystems from which we depend. We discuss how colonization continues to sever community-reliance, and the importance of emphasizing human-scale local knowledge systems in our quest to create a more just world outside of the global corporate economic structure. We talk about how important it is for us to continually educate ourselves on the global context we all live under, as well as gaining intimate local knowledge which informs how we move through our landscapes and communities. Helena breaks down the myth of the “Global Village” and how this corporate ploy has led to the insane economic system of highly destructive comparative advantage that we see today. Above all, we talk about the importance of liberating our minds from the strictures of the story of mechanization, standardization, globalization, and atomization that exists ambiently in our culture, informing our “solutioneering” and detracting from our ability to create lasting, meaningful change.

Be sure to follow Local Futures on Instagram and Twitter, and consider participating in the Planet Local Summit in Bristol, Sept. 29 - Oct. 1.

If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with the people in your life. You can support the podcast by leaving us a 5-star rating and subscribing to the show. If you’d like to financially support the project, consider becoming a paid subscriber on Substack or joining our Patreon. Thanks for listening.

Editing: Maren Morgan

Music: “SING” by My Chemical Romance

On this episode of “Death in The Garden,” we are pleased to share with you the first in our new series of podcasts entitled “A 30,000 ft. View with James Connolly”. James Connolly is the producer of Sacred Cow and Death in The Garden, a chef, an artist, and an all around brilliant guy. On this episode, James interviews the author of We Are Proud Boys: How a Right-Wing Street Gang Ushered in a New Era of American Extremism, Andy Campbell.

In the intro, we all discuss the convergence of the rise of Qanon, incel culture, and the Proud Boys, and the extremism that is coming from these areas of the culture. We discuss the white supremacy that is latent in the early conservation movement, bleeding into the modern environmental movement, and how these things intersect with right-wing extremism. We talk about the films This Place Rules and TFW no GF and the docuseries Into the Storm, discussing the role of meaninglessness and chaos in these movements. We talk about how a history of white supremacy has lead us to these movements where a fear of being “replaced” or rendered “redundant” by society has manifested in white nationalism, ecofascism, and other brands of extremism. We talk about authoritarianism, and how the extremes on both ends of the political spectrum come together in the middle. We also discuss how often conspiracy theories in their wildness obscure the truths that need to be investigated within them.

In the interview, James and Andy discuss specific details of the Proud Boys. They go into the lead-up to Jan 6, the main actors, and go into the overall history of the Proud Boys coming onto the scene and the cultural impact it has had.

For our 50th podcast, we decided it would be a good time for us to speak candidly about where we have come from, where we are going, and where we are now with the project: not only as an update to those who have been following us for a long time, but as a way to introduce ourselves to everyone who is new to Death in The Garden. We discuss the creative process, and the challenges that come when one feels that they need to commodify themselves in order to stay “relevant” or to feel important. We talk about recognizing our personal limitations, and our awareness that growth and mastery take time, energy, and focus. We explain our current creative process with the film/book, and discuss how important it is for us to feel like we can put all of our energy into those long-form pieces. We discuss how the creative process is like a conception, a gestating, and a birth, and the death and fear that comes with that sort of transformation. We also talk about growth, collaboration, and where the project will go beyond the film and book.

We also break down the ways that the podcast is going to change, namely through the introduction of a new series which will be entitled “A 30,000 ft. View with James Connolly.” James Connolly, who is not only our mentor and friend, is the producer of Sacred Cow and Death in The Garden. In these episodes, we will share new and interesting conversations about a myriad of topics that are part of the larger web of the transcontextual world we live in: from white supremacy, to effective altruism, to Davos men, and beyond. These episodes will include a conversational intro between the three of us, and then will follow into a interview James has hosted with an author, journalist, researcher, or artist who is an expert on whatever given topic.

We’re not going anywhere: we’re just honoring our creative process, focusing deeply on the creation of the film series and book, and will be so happy and grateful to share writing and podcasts with you as our creativity and curiosity flourishes. Thank you all for being here.

Editing: Jake Marquez

Music: “Love It If We Made It” by The 1975

On this episode of “Death in The Garden”, we are sharing a reading of our recent Substack piece entitled The Terrible and the Tantalizing: Grappling with AI, Machine Learning, and the Future of Art, where we discuss the emergence of AI “art” and the ramifications it is having for artists. In this essay, we discuss what art is and isn’t, and whether or not we’re comfortable with the definition being subsumed by “machines and the unaccountable corporations at their helms.” We talk about Luddism, and how AI “art” threatens to render artists redundant, just as factories rendered the Luddites, artisanal weavers, redundant, and how we ought to reclaim that oft misunderstood and maligned title. We talk about shifting baseline syndrome, and how, as a culture, we’ve gotten used to the cheapened version of everything; from food, to furniture, to art itself. In the end, we talk about the grief for all that the machine takes from us, and call for all of us to stand up for what we still have left: human creativity, and human-made art.

Links to things mentioned in the essay:

* Steven Zapata Video Essay entitled The End of Art: An Argument Against Image AIs

* “Echoes” by Pink Floyd AI generated music video

* Destino by Salvador Dali and Walt Disney

* The Yes Men Fix the World

* Marques Brownlee Video entitled The Truth about AI Getting “Creative”

Support the project by joining our Patreon or consider becoming a paid subscriber on Substack. Thank you so much for your attention!

Editing: Jake Marquez and Maren Morgan

Music: “Echoes” by Pink Floyd

On this episode of “Death in The Garden,” we talked with pastoralist advocate, ethnoveterinarian, and author Ilse Köhler-Rollefson about her new book, Hoofprints on the Land. We absolutely loved Ilse’s book, and were honored to discuss it in detail with her. We talked about sedentarization being used as a tool of colonial control, the importance of decolonized animal science, the brutality of factory farming, and the fallacy of eliminating livestock as a means to rewild. We discuss field slaughtering and the importance of connecting with death. We talk about 30x30 and how fortress conservation harms human-coupled ecosystems by severing the relationships between pastoralist and indigenous peoples from nature. We talk about how both sides of the livestock debate (plant-based and industrial animal ag proponents) both have a tendency to reduce animals into input-output machines, measuring their value based on efficiency and their ability to convert nutrients into food— comparing that with the reverence and respect pastoralists have for their herds as members of a mutually beneficial co-creative team. Overall, we discussed how pastoralism is the way of the future, and how important it is to protect and learn from those who steward lifeway that is under threat around the world.

You can purchase a copy of Hoofprints on the Land here. Please buy her book, and give Ilse a follow on Twitter. Support Ilse’s NGO, Lokhit Pashu-Palak Sansthan here and check out the League for Pastoral Peoples here.

If you would like to financially support DITG, please consider signing up for a paid subscription to Substack or joining our Patreon. If that isn’t in your budget, a share/review/or a comment goes a long way, as well!

Editing: Jake Marquez

Music: “Go Do” by Jónsi

On this episode of “Death in The Garden”, we share our film interview with Stephen Corry, former CEO of Survival International, indigenous rights activist, and author of Tribal Peoples: For Tomorrow’s World. On this episode we discuss how land theft, assimilation, and sedentarization are threatening indigenous cultures worldwide in the name of homogenizing culture under a Western colonial paradigm. We talk about how dangerous this is, and how important it is for there to be diversity of cultures and lifeways in the world. We talk about the goodness in human nature, and how shame-based propaganda that makes us hate humanity is a useful diversion which makes us more susceptible to accepting false solutions, such as industrial veganism, 30x30 proposals, and electric vehicles. Stephen dispels the Myth of Pristine Wilderness and how it’s been used to promote conservation and “protected areas” as a panacea to climate change, as well as questioning why the internet and military industrial complex are somehow immune to scrutiny within the topic of climate change. We break down the problems of individualism, consumerism, and the overall crisis of identity occurring in the West. We discuss the fragilities of the homogenized, anti-local ideology that has arisen from settler civilization, and talk about how the real solutions will be local, context specific, and grounded in relationship.

Please give Stephen a follow on Twitter, and follow Survival International on Instagram and Twitter as well. Read Stephen’s piece, A Deluge of Things: Von Humbolt, Da Vinci, and The Confounding of Nature and Scapegoats and Holy Cows: Climate Activism and Livestock.

Support the project - Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/deathinthegarden

Editing: Jake Marquez

Music: “Give Us the Wind” by Future Islands

On this episode of “Death in The Garden,” we’re sharing our interview with our friend, fellow podcast host, up-and-coming author, educator, and farmer/gardener, Derrick Weston. Derrick is the co-host of the Food and Faith Podcast alongside Anna Woofenden, and the pair’s book The Just Kitchen: Invitations to Sustainability, Cooking, Connection, and Celebration will be available soon! We had the pleasure of doing this interview at Rockrose City Farm, a beautiful community garden space in Baltimore, where Derrick stewards plots with volunteers and other community members, cultivating food that is donated to food pantries. In this conversation, we discuss food accessibility, and the long history of food apartheid in this country, and how food is related to all of the social justice issues we face as a species. We discuss Christianity and how his faith and understanding of Jesus’ teachings informs how he understands his place in the world as a steward. We discuss the long shadow of slavery, and how racism, dispossession from land, and the systemic narrativizing which separates people from culture is not a thing of the past. We talk about how reconnecting with the land through food is an avenue of of liberation from these deeply engrained systems of oppression. We also discuss the importance of regenerative agriculture being more than a “program”— it needs to have an incredibly strong ethic at it’s foundation which honors the indigenous wisdom traditions it comes from in order to not be subsumed by the same capitalistic structures that created the problem in the first place. Above all, we talk about how the problems we face today, whether it’s consumerism, disconnection, or dislocation, all stem from severed relationships: between each other, and all of Creation. Our crisis of meaning is a crisis of belonging. Circumambulating that idea, we name the relationships that need to be repaired, and discuss visions for the future.

You can find Derrick on Instagram and Twitter, and if you’d like to listen to us on his podcast (among many other brilliant conversations), check out the Food and Faith Podcast!

Editing: Jake Marquez and Maren Morgan

Music: “Holocene” by Bon Iver

This episode is a little something different. On this episode of the podcast, we’re sharing a reading of Maren’s recent Substack piece entitled The Legacy of the '“Men Who Pulled Bread From Air” which breaks down the legacy of the Haber-Bosch process, The Green Revolution, and the Fourth Industrial Revolution in food systems. The piece discusses the states of emergency that bred these periods of innovation, as well as the ramifications that have befallen the planet due to them. Trying to understand where we come from as well as where we are going, Maren gives a history lesson and poses some important questions. Are we going down the right path? Should we continue down the road of high-tech, hyper-industrial agriculture? What sort of food system is aligned with living on Earth sustainably forever?

Understanding where we come from is an important first step on figuring out where to go. The industrial food system is only 100 years old. Is it our fate to be tethered to it forever? Are there viable alternatives to turn to? Do we need to continue down a path of control, uniformity, and chemicals?

We hope you enjoy this reading, and please, if you haven’t, subscribe to our Substack. Consider becoming a paid subscriber so we are more able to produce essays and researched content like this in the future. Or if you’d prefer, consider joining our Patreon community. We just created a new tier for $3 a month, which is less than a cup of coffee and helps cover some of Patreon’s fees!

Editing: Jake Marquez

Music: “Reckoner” by Radiohead

On this episode, we talk to our friend and previous podcast guest Daniel Griffith, a farmer, father, author, poet, and food systems visionary. We wanted to talk to Daniel again to share his experience applying for the USDA’s Climate-Smart Commodity Program grant, and ultimately being denied. We discuss the problems of titanic multinational agribusiness corporations that were granted funding, and we talk about the importance of grass-roots small-scale organizations defining regenerative agriculture in local contexts. We talk about how the solutions to our agricultural woes will not come from the top — that small, human-scale farms hold the key to a healthy food system. We discuss the problems of carbon fundamentalism in our understanding of food system transformation, the precarities of our current system, and the importance of self-determination, diversity, equity, and locality moving foreword. Additionally, we talk about the problems that small-scale farmers face and how the system sets them up for failure. We also discuss Commons Provisions, a step in Daniel’s greater vision towards a food system where people can access hyper-local meats from small-scale regenerative farmers without over-extending the land and the farmers themselves.

Pre-order Daniel’s new book, Dark Cloud Country, and support the Kickstarter Campaign to publish it by clicking here, and buy his book Wild Like Flowers. Follow Daniel on Instagram here and his farm here.

Editing: Jake Marquez

Music: “Broken Together” by Sofa Surfers ft. Mani Obeya

On this episode of “Death in The Garden,” we share our in-person film interview with writer Paul Kingsnorth, creator of the Abbey of Misrule and author of many acclaimed books, such as Alexandria, Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist, and Savage Gods. In this interview we discuss broadly the Machine, a metaphor for the mechanized, atomizing, and ruthlessly extractive society we live in today and how it impacts us spiritually, psychologically, and physically. We discuss the process of unseating the sacred from the “throne” at the center of our societies, and how we’ve supplanted it with technology, reason, and above all, money. We dissect some of the oft forgotten aspects of colonization which were intrinsically tied to industrialism, exploring how colonialism of the enclosure of lands preceded the enclosure of the means of production but being forged from the same story, and how this same story continues today. We discuss at length the story of the Garden of Eden and what we can learn from its metaphors. And finally, we talk about the unlikelihood of turning this ship around, but the importance of recognizing the story of the Machine is a lie, and perhaps only thereafter, we can start living a different way.

If you enjoy this podcast, please share it widely. Additionally, give us a follow on Substack to engage with our written work, and if you’d like to support our film project financially, please consider a paid subscription or joining our Patreon.

Editing: Jake Marquez

Outro music: “The Goose and The Common” by The Quiggs

On this episode of “Death in The Garden,” we discuss what we can learn from the Luddites and how the true meaning of what they stood for can be instructive for how we deal with the rise of A.I. and in our time. In addition to discussing the Luddites, we discuss other works of fiction from the industrial age. We talk about humanity’s proximity to technology, toolmaking, and therefore, machines, and what that means for us moving forward in a tech-entangled world. We discuss the problem of striving for efficiency at all costs, and how humans, and nature, are not “efficient”… and shouldn’t be. We discuss the virtues of “adequate technology” or, as the Luddites put it, “technologies of commonality.” We talk about the awkward tradeoffs that come with all technology, and discuss which lines we personally don’t want to cross in the A.I. age. We talk about the mythic qualities of A.I. and the ancient stories it conjures, such as Prometheus, Kabbalistic Golems, Frankenstein, and the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. We discuss the pseudo-religious reasons for the development of A.I., the idea of creating a “divine” intelligence, and the apocalyptic fantasies that inspire some of the leaders of the field.

To listen to the full episode, upgrade your subscription to “paid” for only $5 a month. It’s the best way to support the podcast, our short films, and the writing we’re producing. It takes a lot of expense, time, and energy to produce this project, so every bit helps! Thank you to everyone who is already supporting us.

Use coupon code DITG20 for 20% off your order, and try out The Beekeeper’s Granddaughter Whipped Tallow Balms today!

Sources:

Rebels Against the Future: The Luddites and their War on the Industrial Revolution by Kirkpatrick Sale, 1995

Erewhon by Samuel Butler, 1872

The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster, 1909

“Why Artifical Intelligence Must Be Stopped Now” by Richard Heinberg, 2024

“The AI Boom Could Use a Shocking Amount of Electricity” by Lauren Leffer, 2023

“Darwin Among the Machines” by Samuel Butler, 1863

“The New AI-Powered Bing Is Threatening Users. That’s No Laughing Matter” by Bill Perrigo

Can Myth Teach Us Anything About the Race to Build Artificial General Intelligence? With Josh Schrei - Your Undivided Attention Podcast

“AI Ethics Surpass Human Judgment in New Moral Turing Test” by Georgia State University

“On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big?” by Emily M. Bender, Timnit Gebru, Angelina McMillan-Major, and Margaret Mitchell, 2021

“I Wrote What? Google's AI-Powered Libel Machine” by Matt Taibbi, 2024

On this episode of “Death in The Garden,” we spoke to conservationist Dr. Aby Sène, professor of Parks and Conservation Area Management at Clemson University, where she researches the intersection between rural development and conservation, race and nature, nature-based tourism, and protected area governance in both the US and in Africa. In this episode, we discuss the colonialism, capitalism, and white supremacy that scaffolds much of the conservation movement, and the societal forces that perpetuate it. We talk about the history of conservation and its relationship to eugenics, as well as the elite powers that currently uphold extractive industries in the so-called “conservation” areas they own and manage, as well as the ways that extractive industries are being permitted to off-set their ecological damage by supporting fortress conservation. Ultimately, we dive into the broader conditions that have made this sort of land-grabbing and social/cultural/spiritual/physical dispossession possible, discussing how the results and human rights violations on the ground are a symptom of a larger system, one which has forced people off their land and into a wage economy which does not benefit them. We discuss how the ultimate goal of conservation should be a world where conservation isn’t necessary at all, and finally, we discuss how these same forces are dispossessing Black farmers in the United States.

Give Aby a follow on Twitter, and read her articles below for more information about the current state of conservation as she sees it:

• 
  

  Land Grabs and Conservation Propaganda

  
  


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  Western Nonprofits are Trampling Over Africans’ Rights and Land

  
  

This is part one of a two-part conversation with Aby, so stay tuned for our film interview with her! This is huge, nuanced topic, but Aby’s passion should inspire us all.

On this episode of “Death in The Garden,” we spoke with farmer, butcher, and brilliant fellow podcaster, Kate Kavanaugh. Kate is the founder of Western Daughters Butcher Shoppe, located in Denver, CO, creator of the amazing podcast called “Ground Work” which discusses and circumambulates three interconnected themes: mind, body, and soil, as well as a farmer based in New York. The way Kate sees the world is illuminating and refreshing, and we had an instant connection after our first conversation. This episode is one of many we hope to share with Kate.

This episode travels into pretty controversial territory, where we openly discuss our thoughts about abortion, sex, and death and the role that these taboos play in our lives. We discuss what it means to be “resourced” enough to bear or raise children, the importance of choice, and how language informs (or misinforms) our understanding of these deeply challenging topics that pervade this current moment. We deep dive into what undergirds the debate between pro-life and pro-choice, which is fundamentally based around our conceptions of life and death. Where does life begin? When is death not a death, or life not a life? What are we avoiding when we ask these questions rather than sitting with the uncomfortable reality that death is part of life? We also discuss life and death in the context of a farm, we talk about the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, how engaging with death can help us understand our place in the cosmos, and so much more.

Find Kate on Instagram and listen to her fantastic podcast wherever you listen to podcasts.

Editing: Jake Marquez

Outro music: “Blinding” by Florence + The Machine

On this episode of “Death in The Garden,” we talked to our brilliant, long-time friend of the podcast, Isabel Ramirez. Isabel is a board certified health coach specializing in chronic conditions (she is auto-immune and paleo certified), an expert forager, inspiring mother, and all around amazing person. We discussed the importance of inclusivity into wellness and regenerative agriculture spaces, the problems of financialization in the health and wellness world, the way an ancestrally appropriate diet and lifestyle can help manage chronic health conditions, the incapability of industrial civilization with the biological needs of our bodies, and how overwhelming it can be to attain health in modern times. We talk about the problems associated with healthcare being about “symptom control” rather than root cause treatments. Isabel breaks down the transition into modernity and how that has severed us from vital processes that help us maintain our health, including community, belonging, and access to healthy, in-season, biodiverse foods. We discuss how capitalism has motivated the homogenization and destruction of food through monocropping and chemically intensive practices.

Isabel has a vast wealth of information, and we hope you enjoy this conversation. Follow her on Instagram, and be sure to come see her present at the Ancestral Health Symposium, August 18-20 at UCLA in Los Angeles, CA! It will be amazing, and we’ll be there too. Use our code DITG10 at check-out to get 10% off of your tickets. Apply for the BIPOC scholarship here.

If you are enjoying the podcast, please leave us a 5 star rating and review. If you would like to support the project financially, consider joining our Patreon community or paying for a subscription to our Substack, where we’re sharing writing, videos, and other media to flesh out what “Death in The Garden” is all about.

Editing: Jake Marquez

Outro Music: “Sol” by Tunacola

On this episode of “Death in The Garden,” we share our interview with Frédéric Leroy, professor of food science and biotechnology at the University of Brussels, President of the Belgian Association of Meat Science and Technology, President of Belgian Society for Food Microbiology, Administrator of ALEPH2020, and member of the Belgian Nutrition Society and Global Food Justice Alliance. We discuss the intersections between the campaigns to demonize meat-eating, the corporatization of the food system, the proliferation of chronic disease, biased nutritional science, global deficiencies and malnutrition, and animal-rights groups. We also touch on the biological indicators which prove meat-eating is natural, and we talk about how animal have been systematically obscured from perception and cordoned to industrial methods, and how that separation has been integral to animal rights abuses. We discuss the connection between The Great Reset, the World Economic Forum, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the UN, and the transformation to factory produced foods, as well as the expansion of “protected areas” under plans like 30x30 or “Half-Earth.” We talk about what models of scientific analysis should be implemented in the future to understand the complexity of human nutrition science with more rigor, as well as the need for certain regulations to end animal cruelty and regenerate land.

Check out the ALEPH2020 website for more information, and refer to this image when we start discussing “pre-domestic, domestic, and post domestic” livestock relationships.

Come and join us at the Ancestral Health Symposium in Los Angeles at UCLA, August 18-20! Use coupon code DITG10 at check-out to get 10% off your tickets.

Please, if you enjoy the podcast and want to support the film, consider joining our Patreon community or subscribing to our Substack. If you can’t support financially, a rating, review, or share of the podcast goes a long way!

Editing: Jake Marquez

On this episode of "Death in The Garden," we speak to Anders Oskal, the Secretary General of the Association of World Reindeer Herders and the Executive Director of the International Centre for Reindeer Husbandry in Guovdageaidnu/ Kautokeino, Norway. Anders speaks to us about Sámi culture, explaining the way of his people, the agreement they have made with the reindeer, the importance of their indigenous knowledge in the Arctic landscape, and how the "best available knowledges" must be combined if we ever have a hope of adapting to climate change in our ecosystems. We speak about the encroachments on Sámi lands from industrial development, wind farming and mining, and discuss the unique speed of climate change in the Arctic and these encroachments are making it even more difficult for their people to adapt to the variability in climate, not to mention destroying their ancestral lands. 

To learn more about how industry is impacting reindeer herding and Sámi culture, check out these articles below: 

- Føsen Case

- Oyfjellet wind plant

- Gallok mine

Please, if you enjoy the podcast and want to support the film, consider joining our Patreon community or subscribing to our Substack. If you can’t support financially, a rating, review, or share of the podcast goes a long way!

Editing: Jake Marquez

On this episode of "Death in The Garden," we share our interview with former CEO of Survival International, Stephen Corry. We have been interested in Survival International for a while, as many of you know, but we became particularly interested in speaking with Stephen when he started posting on Twitter about how problematic so much of the vegan agenda was, particularly conflating all livestock husbandry with factory farming. When he wrote this fantastic article, we were so excited to see that someone else was seeing the through-lines between the vegan narrative, conservation, and also the green energy climate change narratives. We discuss at length the manufacturing of these narratives, how they service elites, and how people everywhere will suffer if we continue to let the conversation about climate change be co-opted and controlled by the most powerful people in the world. We discuss Greta Thunberg, the common rhetoric around hopelessness, the racist and genocidal application of conservation, how colonialism never ended, and the problem of believing there is one right way to live. 

Please subscribe to our Substack to get writing accompaniments to this podcast and more, as well as a deep dive into our thoughts at the moment delivered right to your email. Check out our Patreon and become a patron for as little as $1 per month. 

Editing: Jake Marquez

Music: "Buildings & Mountains" by The Republic Tigers

On this episode of "Death in The Garden," we share an interview we recorded over the summer and never released. It turns out that it was the perfect moment for us to revisit this wonderful conversation we had with Tyson Yunkaporta, member of the Apalech Clan, author of Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World and lecturer of Indigenous Knowledges at Deakin University. We talk about  how civilization is defined by the exportation of entropy through open loop systems, the financialization of climate action, the relationship of being, dying, and being reintegrated into a landscape, the similarities between communism and capitalism, the inherent unsustainability of the way we’re all living our lives, the 1000 year clean-up and the actual plight of the millennial/gen-z generations, the emergent cultures of transition, and the importance of finding humor and laughter in these perilous times.

We hope this conversation lifts your spirits as it has lifted ours. While sobering, the honesty and humor of this conversation is so refreshing and generative – just what we all need right now!

Please, if you enjoy the podcast and want to support the film, consider joining our Patreon community or subscribing to our Substack. If you can’t support financially, a rating, review, or share of the podcast goes a long way!

Editing: Jake Marquez

Music: "If I Ever Leave This World Alive" by Flogging Molly

On this episode, we talk to ourselves about some of our experiences traveling in Europe and our reflections thus far. We talk about the disillusionment of the fantasies about this continent, share some personal experiences we’ve had, things we’ve learned, and revelations we’ve come to. We break down some ideas we’ve had around the factory farming of all life on Earth, phantom carrying capacity, industrialization and derangement of the web of life, and how important it is to change our view of climate change from something nebulous and global to specific and local, such as focusing on how microclimates are impacted by human activity. As always, we try to advocate for people actively engaging in their ecology and express the perspective that until we look around us and see just how damaged and interconnected the world is, we’ll never actually accurately assess the problems we face.

Check out our most recent Substack for supplemental footage and writing for this podcast. 

Stuff mentioned in the show:

Artifishal by Josh “Bones” Murphy — fantastic film about salmon and what is getting in the way of their ability to thrive.

DamNation by Ben Knight and Travis Rummel — another wonderful film about dams and how destructive they are.

ALEPH — incredible archive of information about the industry of demonizing meat.

Bilge dumping — short film depicting the little-known ecocidal process of bilge dumping from cargo ships.

Editing: Jake Marquez

Music: “2+2=5” by Radiohead

Disclaimer: As is the nature of human conversation, there are many things in this podcast that are not going to be 100% accurate. The nature of reality also dictates that there is always going to be nuance that is left out. We hope you enjoy this podcast and the information we’ve ascertained nonetheless!

On this episode of "Death in The Garden" we talk to author and journalist, Richard Manning after reading his book Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Highjacked Civilization, which discusses "catastrophic" agriculture's spread throughout history, its pattern of colonialism, and how it is a prerequisite for our civilization. We talk about the problems of agriculture broadly, including processed foods, CAFO meat farming, and the squandering of America's grasslands for biofuels, hunting, degrowth through regenerative food systems, the rewilding of the self, and the problems of carbon fundamentalism. 

Please, if you enjoy the podcast and want to support the film, consider joining our Patreon community or subscribing to our Substack. If you can’t support financially, a rating, review, or share of the podcast goes a long way!

Editing: Parker Burningham 

Outro music: "The Defeat" by Ben Howard

On this episode of “Death in The Garden,” Jake and Maren interview Wild Quetzal — a digital creator on Instagram, as well as a graphic designer for conscious companies. Quetzal is doing incredible work online, sharing knowledge and wisdom about the history of civilization and encouraging people to undomesticate themselves through reconnecting with our role in the ecology. Food, of course, is foundational to all of life, therefore all ecologies. This conversation covered so many topics: veganism, death, resilience, food sovereignty, technology, indigeneity, and so much more. This conversation goes deep into in to the substrata of what it means to be a human being in the age of collapse of all that is familiar: we talk about the dire position we are in as a species and how our best chance at surviving in the future is coming back into relationship with our wildness.

Be sure to give Quetzal a follow on Instagram: he’s using this modality better than anyone we know, and we really love his work.

Please, if you enjoy the podcast and want to support the film, consider joining our Patreon community or subscribing to our Substack. If you can’t support financially, a rating, review, or share of the podcast goes a long way!

Editing: Jake Marquez

Music: “Here for a Moment” by Gone Gone Beyond, The Human Experience, & MGP 21

On this episode of “Death in The Garden” we are sharing our conversation with Alex Leff, which was co-released for his podcast subscribers. Alex Leff is the creator and visionary behind Human Nature Odyssey, which is a cinematic audio journey through the fantastic and iconic book, Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. He is also the creator of a beautiful film called Cycle of Memory, which takes the viewer on an intimate and compassionate journey through his family’s experience of their patriarch suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. We had an expansive conversation, discussing and admiring each other’s projects while also deepening our understanding of why we all find ourselves to be so curious about civilization and how to make the world a better place.

Check out his podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, and please leave him a 5-star rating!

Paid subscribers should get the full audio and free subscribers should only get a preview of this conversation. If you’d like to listen to this podcast in full, as well as have access to our upcoming surprises, please become a paid subscriber today! You can support us for only $5 a month. We can only continue doing this project with your support!

(We know some of our free subscribers on Substack support us on Patreon - do not fret. You find the video here).

On this episode of “Death in The Garden” we share our interview with our friend Daniel Griffith, steward of Timshel Wildland, a Savory Hub doing the most incredible work we've ever seen, and author of Wild Like Flowers. We had the pleasure of going to his “farm” in Virginia in April of 2021 to film an incredibly enriching calf-donation that Daniel orchestrated, which you can watch here. Our minds were blown the entire time by the depth of thoughtfulness of the regeneration efforts on the wildland, which we’ll show in much more detail in the film. For now, please enjoy this interview where we talk about resilience, abundance, letting go of control, and seeing ourselves within ecosystems, rather than viewing ourselves as above them.

For more information about Daniel, check out his Instagram. For more information about the wildland itself, check out their Instagram and website.

Please, if you enjoy the podcast and want to support the film, consider joining our Patreon community or subscribing to our Substack. If you can’t support financially, a rating, review, or share of the podcast goes a long way!

Editing: Parker Burningham and Jake Marquez

Music: “Nothing, Nothing” by Kim Churchill 

On this episode of “Death in The Garden,” we talk with filmmaker Julia Barnes and writer/filmmaker Joshua Clinton about their campaign against proposed deep sea mining (DSM) of poly metallic nodules which contain rare earth minerals that can be used in electric vehicles and other “renewable” technologies. You can find more information at their website, Deep Sea Defenders. This podcast is meant to function as an amendment to podcast #12, where we interviewed Dr. Gregory Stone, who is a proponent of DSM. We discuss the destruction of the oceans that will arise from this industrial practice, and the backwardness of destroying the oceans to protect it.

Check out this short film Julia made which describes the process as well as Joshua's Counterpunch article. 

In addition to speaking about deep sea mining, we discuss Joshua’s upcoming first film project where he is exposing and protesting the proposed wind farm in Aberdeenshire which will threaten one of the last remaining habitats of the Scottish wildcat, an ancient cat and the last of the wild felids in Britain. In opposition to Vattenfall, the Swedish energy company, Joshua will be interviewing leaders from the organization “Wildcat Haven.” 

Here’s a quote from his Instagram post with more information: “The film will cover the plight of the Scottish Wildcat, the effect of habitat destruction & biodiversity loss on ecosystems, and the collusion between Vattenfall and various Scottish governmental bodies to greenwash the project & ensure that it goes ahead.”

We also discuss filmmaking and the processes of making a film about a topic that is deeply unpopular: rejecting the so-called solutions to climate change, as Julia did in her film Bright Green Lies based on the book by Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith, and Max Wilbert.

We talk about greenwashing, discussions about carbon fundamentalism, how environmentalism has been perverted, technological escalation, what it’s like to be a young environmentalist, and so much more.

Please subscribe to our Substack to get writing accompaniments to this podcast and more, as well as a deep dive into our thoughts at the moment delivered right to your email. Check out our Patreon and become a patron for as little as $1 per month. 

Editing: Jake Marquez

Music: “Bluebell, Cockleshell, 123” by King Creosote

This week on "Death in The Garden," Jake and Maren share their interview with experimental psychologist, professor, and author, Sheldon Solomon. This episode was recorded in May of 2021, but was always a seminal piece for our project: we talk about how death denying delusions are running rampant in modern culture, how the blind belief in the inevitability of progress is taking us down a dark road, and how the acceptance and awareness of our mortality can help us turn our attention to the vistas of awe and enchantment necessary to create the more beautiful world we all want to live in. 

Please subscribe to our Substack to get writing accompaniments to this podcast and more, as well as a deep dive into our thoughts at the moment delivered right to your email. Check out our Patreon and become a patron for as little as $1 per month. 

Be sure to check out Ernest Becker's book, The Denial of Death and Sheldon's book, The Worm at The Core.

Editing: Parker Burningham

Outro music: "Parting of the Sensory" by Modest Mouse

On this episode of “Death in The Garden”, Jake and Maren share their interview with Dr. Tro Kalayjian, a board certified Internal Medicine and Obesity Medicine Physician. He co-hosts the podcast Low Carb MD. Dr. Tro had a long journey of obesity throughout his life and career as a physician, and was finally able to tackle obesity and lose 150 lbs with a low-carb diet. Now he treats patients using an incredibly holistic model, remotely monitoring his patients biometrics with CGMs and other technologies that allow him to see clearly the complexity of each individual’s needs. Find out more about his practice here.

We talk with Tro about the journey he took from following all of the nutritional guidelines, yet failing to manage his obesity, where he decided to get into the weeds of the research himself and found that a low-carb animal based diet was the most effective diet in reversing diabetes and obesity – even though that didn’t conform with the mainstream narratives of “eat less, move more” or being plant-based. We talk about the importance of animal foods in diet, the fallacy of “calories in, calories out”, the true culprit of obesity and diabetes - processed foods with high amounts of sugar and vegetable oils (not meat and eggs like animal rights activists want us to believe), and why the medical industry so often fails at helping people lose weight.

Please follow Dr. Tro on Instagram and Twitter for more information, and check out his website.

If you are enjoying the podcast, please rate, review, and subscribe.

Sign up for our free Substack publication and join our Patreon for as little as $1 a month!

Editing: Parker Burningham
Outro music: “Truth” by Alex Ebert

On this episode of “Death in The Garden”, Jake and Maren share their interview with author and science journalist, Nina Teicholz. She is also a member of the Global Food Justice Alliance, an amazing organization that advocates for the rights of all people to have access to nutrient dense animal foods. Nina’s book, The Big Fat Surprise, is an instrumental compilation of scientific research, interviews, and history which describes how we’ve been profoundly misled about dietary fat for over 100 years. In this episode, we break down all of these ideas, talking about the vilification of meat and saturated fat, the dubiousness of epidemiology as a basis for scientific research, the dangers of pushes toward a global diet, the disastrous consequences of food policy, the abysmal state of current health, the horrors of vegetable oils, and so much more.

Please give Nina a follow on Twitter and Instagram, and be sure to read her book, The Big Fat Surprise.

Please help support our transition from Instagram by signing up for our Substack publication, which will always be free, but if you’d like to support us financially, you can pay to subscribe. Another way to support us is by joining our Patreon for as little as $1 a month! Join a Discord community of like-minded people, access bonus content, and get hand-crafted merchandise made by Maren.

Editing: Jake Marquez and Parker Burningham

Intro: “Revelations” by Tristan Barton, sequence created by Jake Marquez and Maren Morgan with archival soundbites from Charlie Chaplin, George Orwell, Carl Sagan, Alan Watts, Robert Oppenheimer, and Terrence McKenna.

Outro music: “I’ve Got A Feeling” by The Beatles

On this episode of “Death in The Garden”, Jake and Maren share their interview with Simon Counsell, executive director of the Rainforest Foundation UK, an organization “which supports indigenous and traditional peoples of the world's rainforests in their efforts to protect their environment and fulfill their rights.” We were lucky enough to meet Simon at the Our Land, Our Nature congress in Marseille, France. Simon breaks down for us the fallaciousness of “nature-based solutions” and how they serve to consolidate wealth and power and allow polluting industries to continue polluting. We go into detail about how fossil fuel companies, like Shell, Chevron, and Total have been instrumental in pushing this narrative that originated from the Nature Conservancy and the “forgotten solution.” Simon breaks down the impossibility of the climate goals, and how the implementation of such extreme measures like 30x30 or “Spatial Planning” will most negatively affect those who harm the land the least, and will only serve commodify nature and infringe upon human rights due to the dubious efficacy of such proposals.

Please give the Rainforest Foundation a follow on Twitter and Instagram, and please rate, review, and subscribe if you are enjoying the show.

Editing: Parker Burningham

Intro music: Daniel Osterstock

Outro music: “DLZ” by TV On The Radio

On this episode of “Death in The Garden,” as COP26 ends in Glasgow, Jake and Maren share their second interview with Dr. Mordecai Ogada, carnivore ecologist, activist for the Decolonization of Conservation, and co-author of The Big Conservation Lie. In our previous conversation with Mordecai, he mentioned the “Our Land, Our Nature” congress in Marseille, which we were lucky enough to attend and acquire this interview in person. This time we go deep into speculating about the more nefarious side of the global climate change narrative, including the obsession with the fertility of African women, the prospect of protected areas being refuges for elites, the establishment of decentralized colonies headed by colonizing NGOs, and conservation being a smoke screen for extraction and industry.

In a time where there are so many “solutions” being thrown up in the air about climate change, we feel it is very important to question everything and consider every detail. Where is the money coming from, and where is it going? Listen to Mordecai Ogada make the case for increasing our scrutiny of conservation NGOs, and demanding accountability and transparency for their dealings, as well as the narrative of climate change as a whole.

Please rate, review, and subscribe if you are enjoying the show, and give Mordecai a follow on Twitter, and be sure to check out his website.

For more information about “Death in The Garden,” follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and our website.

Editing: Parker Burningham

Intro music: Daniel Osterstock

Outro music: "Walk the Walk" by Gaz Coombes

On this episode of "Death in The Garden", we share our interview from early September with Fiore Longo, Director of Survival International France and Spain, and fearless leader of the campaign to Decolonize Conservation through the Our Land, Our Nature congress we were lucky enough to attend in Marseille. We talk with Fiore about a number of prescient topics, most notably exposing the fallacies and human rights violations that are rampant in global conservation, the overall lack of scientific basis that claim global conservation efforts combat climate change (which largely include language like "net zero", "nature based solutions", and "carbon offsets"), the corporate capture of environmentalism, the hidden agendas in COP 15, COP 26, the UNFSS, and the IUCN Congress, and we talk about how imperative it is that we reframe biodiversity as including human beings – and that humans are an integral part of nature. 

Please follow Fiore on Twitter, and find Survival International on Twitter, Instagram, and their website. 

If you are finding value in what you learn from the show, please rate, review and subscribe, and share with your friends! For more information, check out our Instagram, Twitter, and website.

Editing: Parker Burningham

Intro music: Daniel Osterstock

Outro music: "Tornado" by Jónsi

On this episode of “Death in The Garden”, we interview biophilic author and attorney, Will Falk. Will began his career as a public defender and eventually transitioned to environmental law and activism, participating direct action encampments at the Wet’suwet’en Nation in Canada and Mauna Kea, protecting the sacred lands from pipelines and a telescope respectively. Recently, Will has been working with the People of Red Mountain, the coalition of indigenous peoples from the Duck Valley and Fort McDermitt reservations, to fight against the lithium claims in Thacker Pass, or Peehee Mu’huh, “Rotten Moon”, which is a massacre site of Paiute people. In this episode, Will explains the details of his case against Lithium Nevada and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the ecological and cultural devastation that will occur if this mine is given clearance to be created, the challenges of being attacked by both environmentalists and capitalists, the importance of direct action, the problem of civilization, a phenomenon called “shifting baseline syndrome”, and we end by discussing the true costs of defending the Earth, and the price we may have to be willing to pay.

Find Will on Twitter, Instagram, and at his website. Read his book, How Dams Fall. And please, if you can, support the efforts at Thacker Pass.

If you are enjoying the show, please rate, review, and subscribe. Thank you for listening.

Editing: Parker Burningham

Intro music: Daniel Osterstock

Outro music: “Lampshades on Fire” by Modest Mouse

On this episode of “Death in The Garden", we interview Dr. Sylvia Karpagam, a public health doctor with an MD in Community Medicine in India. Sylvia is a champion at advocating for the rights of all people to have access to quality nutrition, a sharp critic of the caste system, and an advocate for food sovereignty. She is a member of the Global Food Justice Alliance, an organization pushing back against the unjust and unethical campaigns against animal food availability being perpetuated by the global elite. In this episode, we talk about the downsides of a vegan/vegetarianism, the politics around food in India, the globalist/elitist agendas that are being exported to India, the impact of ISKCON on children who rely on “midday meals”, anemia and malnutrition, the BJP and the violence being perpetrated on meat-eaters, the impact of the caste system on people’s health, and so much more.

Please give Dr. Sylvia Karpagam a follow on Twitter, and read her published work for more information about her, and the impact she is having in her country and around the world.

If you are enjoying the show, please rate, review, and subscribe. Check out our Instagram and website for more information about the project.

Editing: Jake Marquez

Intro music: Daniel Osterstock

Outro music: “Can’t Say No” by The Helio Sequence

On this episode of “Death in The Garden,” Maren is reading her recent piece, The Tales that Really Matter - Part I. In this audio essay, you’ll hear tracks and clips from The Lord of the Rings films by Peter Jackson, and music composed by Howard Shore. Additionally, you’ll hear original synth soundscapes inspired by Howard Shore’s compositions, from the songs “In Dreams”, “The Road Goes Ever On…, Pt. 1”, and “Samwise the Brave”.

All credit for movie clips and songs used goes to Peter Jackson et al. and Howard Shore.

This podcast is sponsored by The Beekeeper’s Granddaughter Whipped Tallow Balms. If you are in the market for clean, natural, and nourishing moisturizing healing balms for dry skin or other skin conditions, you have to try these tallow balms. Use coupon code DITG20 for 20% of your order! Try yours today.

If you’d like to keep DITG going, please consider becoming a paid subscriber on Substack for only $5 a month. This will give you access to bonus material (some of which is very exciting and currently very secret) and allow us to continue doing this project. Thank you for being here.

Writing & Editing: Maren Morgan

Mastering: Jake Marquez

Songs used: “Gollum”, “Forth Eorlingas”, “Samwise the Brave”, “Caras Galadhon/ ‘Lament for Gandalf’”

On this episode of “Death in The Garden”, Jake and Maren break their two month hiatus with an update about the events of the past months during production of the film. We talk more about being robbed in Ecuador, the Ancestral Health Symposium that we attended in Los Angeles, the protest against the proposed lithium mine in Thacker Pass, the Our Land, Our Nature counter-congress to the IUCN World Conservation Congress in France, our time at Fjällbete in Sweden, and deeply personal encounters with death and grief that have punctuated the last month, which have informed the rest of our lives.

Specific topics discussed in the show:

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  Ancestral Health Symposium

  
  
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    Website

    
    
  
  
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    Lectures

    
    
  
  
  
  


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  Protect Thacker Pass/Peehee Mu’huh

  
  
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    Website

    
    
  
  
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    Twitter

    
    
  
  
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    Instagram

    
    
  
  
  
  


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  Our Land, Our Nature

  
  
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    Part 1 video

    
    
  
  
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    Part 2 video

    
    
  
  
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    Survival International Twitter and Instagram.

    
    
  
  
  
  

Please rate, review, and subscribe if you enjoy the show. Thank you all for your patience, and thank you for being here. For more information about the project, check out our Instagram and website.

Editing: Jake Marquez

Intro music: Daniel Osterstock

Outro music: “Death with Dignity” by Sufjan Stevens

On this episode of “Death in The Garden,” we interview human rights lawyer, Terry Collingsworth. Terry has worked for decades as an advocate for people all around the world who have suffered human rights abuses by corporations, and is the Executive Director for International Rights Advocates, an organization that promotes human rights and corporate accountability through legal advocacy. Terry and his organization have worked tirelessly to hold cocoa companies accountable for the child labor and slavery that is occurring in Côte d'Ivoire, as well as other human rights violations such as the flagrant disregard for human life in cobalt mines. We talk about the economic structures that reinforce a system of slavery, and how ultimately consolidating wealth for corporations is the driving force behind these atrocious working conditions throughout the developing world. We discuss how the true costs of our technologies and commodities, such as coffee and chocolate, are never paid by us, the consumers. Terry recently spoke at the UN Food Systems Pre-Summit about the crimes against humanity being committed by Nestle, Cargill, Mars, Hershey, and others, and we discuss the elite corporatism that has infiltrated what is meant to be a democratic conversation that includes all voices.

This episode is devastating and illuminating. We are honored to have been given the opportunity to have this conversation with Terry. Please read this article which describes the cases of Nestlé USA, Inc. v. Doe I and Cargill Inc. v. Doe I, a case representing plaintiffs who were kidnapped and trafficked from Mali and enslaved in Côte d'Ivoire.

IRAdvocates posted an update on this case on August 2, 2021.

On July 30, 2021, Nestle, Cargill, Mars, Hershey, Mondelez, Olam and Barry Callebaut responded to the TVPRA Complaint with a Motion to Dismiss (PDF below). The companies’ response is a remarkable collection of objectively verifiable lies. Twenty years after they acted collectively and signed the Harkin-Engel Protocol in 2001 and promised to end their admitted use of the “worst forms of child labor,” they argue to a U.S. federal judge that they are mere purchasers of cocoa, they don’t have sufficient knowledge of forced child labor to be liable, they have no control over the cocoa farmers in Cote D’Ivoire, because they are so far removed from cocoa harvesting operations, holding them liable for using cocoa harvested by enslaved children would be akin to holding consumers of chocolate liable, and, by the way, they “strongly condemn the use of forced labor.”

The lack of accountability from these companies is horrifying. Please share this podcast widely and support the work done by Terry Collingsworth and IRAdvocates.

For more information about the project, check out our website and Instagram.

Editing: Jake Marquez

Music: Daniel Osterstock

On this episode of “Death in The Garden,” Jake and Maren interview carnivore ecologist and conservation writer Dr. Mordecai Ogada. He is the Executive Director of Conservation Solutions Afrika, which aims to transform conservation in Africa to a model that includes humans in relationship to the land and wildlife. Ogada, alongside journalist John Mbaria, wrote the book The Big Conservation Lie in 2017, which details the problems in African conservation that stem from a racialized hero system that favors Western foreigners over Black Africans. These problems have deep taproots in Christian colonization, and continue to infiltrate the psyches of Africans as well as people in the West, perpetuated by narratives that suggest that philanthropy, conservation, and tourism are necessary to “protect” wild animals in Africa. Underlying these assumptions is that wildlife needs to be protected from Black African locals who have lived in equilibrium with this wildlife since humanity began. Meanwhile, white Westerners are encouraged to go on safaris all over Africa and kill big game animals for sport, yet there is no paramilitary outfits that will hunt and kill these foreigners, let alone burn down their villages, and disallow them from accessing their sacred forests as organizations such as WWF (World Wildlife Fund) have done alongside so many other multinational conservation organizations.

A deeply complex issue, we dive into the intersections between conservation and food systems, the racist assumptions underpinning conservation in Africa, the Disney-fied myths that perpetuate problems in Western perception of Africa and its wildlife, the fallacy of tourism and capitalism being necessary to protect wildlife, the removal of the sacred during Christian colonization, how conservation today reinforces the institutions of colonialism, and how the language of crisis maintains these dubious institutions. We also talk about death in the circle of life as it relates to carnivores, and the necessity of allowing natural processes to continue unobstructed. Highlighting the necessity of indigenous interaction with the landscape, Ogada paints a detailed picture of how we might better move forward with conservation in an integrated, context based way, and to not apply global homogenizing rules to complex systems.

Please rate, review, and subscribe if you are enjoying this podcast. Check out our website and Instagram for more information about “Death in The Garden.” Keep reaching out – we love to hear from our listeners!

Editing: Jake Marquez

Music: Daniel Osterstock

On this episode of “Death in The Garden,” Jake and Maren interview renowned author Charles Eisenstein. Charles has written a number of incredibly impactful books, such as Sacred Economics, Ascent of Humanity, The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible, and, most recently, Climate: A New Story. He also writes incredible essays available on his website, such as “Extinction and the Revolution of Love” which is mentioned in the show.

In this episode we discuss what Charles calls “The Story of Separation,” the myths (or metanarratives) that dictate how we see ourselves within the biosphere, the problems of modern environmentalism and “sustainability” movements, carbon fundamentalism, the importance of viewing the Earth as being alive, the pitfalls of reductionist thinking, and the complexity of morality with regards to death.

Thank you for listening to the show, and please rate, review, and subscribe! Check out our website and Instagram for more information about our multimedia documentary project.

Editing: Jake Marquez

Music: Daniel Osterstock

This week on “Death in The Garden” we return from our hiatus to share our interview with Jesse Smith, Director of Land Stewardship at White Buffalo Land Trust, a Savory Hub in Santa Barbara, CA. This was a pivotal interview which planted innumerable seeds in our heads, all of which have since germinated into such a deeper understanding about the direction of our project: "regeneration as self-preservation"; what regeneration truly means; what sustainability truly means; the reconciliation and healing from colonialism that is necessary for progress; the epigenetics of livestock/landscapes/humans; the energetic relationships between all things; the problems with Enlightenment thinking; how technology must “be in the service of more life”; the spiritual/cultural/physical regeneration that will punctuate our transition from this paradigm to the next; and understanding that we are surrounded by a living, mysterious world. There is so much gold packed into this interview. So much of what Jesse said here has informed our worldview today, even when many of the topics he discussed were outside of our comprehension at the moment of this interview.

This is a fantastic interview, and we’re glad we are revisiting it and releasing it now, as our understanding of the topics discussed has since become far more clear. This is where so many seeds were planted for us – we can’t wait to share this conversation with you all.

Thank you everyone for your patience. Please rate, review, and subscribe to the podcast if you are enjoying the conversations we are having here. Check out our website and Instagram for more information about “Death in The Garden.”

Editing: Jake Marquez

Music: Daniel Osterstock

On this episode of “Death in The Garden,” we had the honor to interview Steven Donziger in his Manhattan apartment on his 623rd day of house arrest for the baseless misdemeanor charge of criminal contempt.

For 27 years, Steven has been fighting for the indigenous & rural peoples of the Ecuadorian Amazon who, from 1967 to 1992 suffered cancer causing abuses and atrocities at the hands of the oil company Texaco, which has since merged with Chevron. Texaco executives had made deliberate decisions to cut costs by polluting the rivers and streams, creating an ecological disaster worse than the Valdez oil spill. They admitted to dumping 16 billion gallons of toxic waste during this time. This waste has caused unimaginable horrors for the humans and the ecosystem in this region of the Amazon.

In 2011, Steven and his Ecuadorian partners won a historic judgement against Chevron. This judgement would be $9.5 billion to clean up the rainforest so that some semblance of paradise might be returned to the victims of this crime: the Secoya, the Siona, the Cofan, the Quechua, the Waorani, and the now extinct Tetete, who were wiped out by this atrocity.

The judgement against Chevron has been affirmed by 6 appellate courts including the Supreme courts of both Ecuador and Canada.

Instead of complying with the court order, Chevron began a retaliation campaign to discredit and demonize Steven, as well as a number of his associates in Ecuador (Secoya Indigenous leader Javier Piaguaje and farmer Hugo Camacho). Chevron claimed that the case was fraudulent based solely on admittedly false testimony from a witness that the company (Chevron themselves) had paid $2 million, Alberto Guerra.

In July of 2019, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan charged Steven with criminal contempt for refusing to break his attorney-client confidentiality by turning over his cell phone & computer over to Chevron. Steven has been imprisoned under house arrest since then.

His trial is May 10, 2021. Steven's lawyers say the preceding will be a farce given he is being denied a jury with the sole fact-finder being a judge who has locked him up for 2 years pretrial. The judge, Loretta A. Preska, and Rita Glavin both have extensive financial ties to Chevron. Glavin was appointed by Kaplan after the regular federal prosecutor refused to take on the case.

Steven deserves a fair trial. Share widely. Call your representatives. Make your voice heard.

To support Steven, please visit:

www.donzigerdefense.com

www.freedonziger.org

For a comprehensive timeline of the case, click here.

Follow Steven on Instagram and Twitter to see updates on his case, and to support him by sharing his posts.

Watch Crude, by Joe Berlinger here.

Please spread the word. Please rate, review, and subscribe. Many thanks.

Editing: Jake Marquez

Music: Daniel Osterstock

On this episode of “Death in The Garden,” we interview Paul Kingsnorth, author (The Wake, Beast, Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist, and most recently, Alexandria, to name but a few) and creator of The Dark Mountain Project. The Dark Mountain Project is a cultural movement through storytelling, writing and art, centered around the Dark Mountain Journal.

We spoke with Paul about what it means to be honest with ourselves in these times of social, ecological, and spiritual breakdown. We covered the issues of the current environmental movement, and the emotional processes of accepting that these “solutions” being given to us are not solutions at all. We talk about spirituality, religion, alchemy, and the importance of looking to pre-history & indigenous cultures to understand our place and path forward.

If you are enjoying the show, please rate, review, and subscribe. If you want to know more about “Death in The Garden,” please visit our website and Instagram.

Editing: Jake Marquez

Music: Daniel Osterstock

On this episode of “Death in The Garden,” we share our interview with Abbey Smith, an amazing mother, Global Network Coordinator for the Savory Institute, and director of the Jefferson Center for Holistic Management. We talked to Abbey about holism and the necessity of viewing life as complexly as possible — whether it be a question of our physical/mental health, the health of the land, the health of community, and the health of the planet. We speak about the difference between “industrial thinking” and “complex thinking,” holistic management, and we talk at length about Abbey’s personal health journey, which is an incredibly valuable anecdote for women. As per usual, we talk about death and the importance of understanding our place in the cycle of life.

Please leave us a review, give us a rating, and subscribe to the podcast if you’re enjoying our work. Check out our website and Instagram for more information about our project.

Editing: Jake Marquez

Music: Daniel Osterstock

On this episode of “Death in The Garden,” we share our interview with our friend Bobby Gill, Director of Development and Communications at the Savory Institute. We talk about regenerative agriculture, and how a holistic management & having a holistic context can (and should) be translated to all aspects of life — from managing livestock, to our mental and physical health, and ultimately to the trajectories of our lives. We talk about the necessity of death, the importance of embracing its existence rather than avoiding its existence, and how to have reverence for the cycles of life, death, and rebirth.

Learn more about the Savory Institute and Bobby Gill by following them on Instagram.

Please rate, review, and subscribe if you are enjoying our podcast! To learn more about our project, give us a follow on Instagram and check out our website.

Editing: Jake Marquez

Music: Daniel Osterstock

On this episode of "Death in The Garden," Jake and Maren talk about the cultural memes and mythologies that permeate every aspect of modern life. Drawing inspiration from Ishmael and The Invisibility of Success by Daniel Quinn, we discuss the narratives and fallacies that have driven our culture to devour planet Earth, and we challenge our audience to confront the mythologies that dominate our world views.

Check out our website and Instagram for more information about our project! 

Editing: Jake Marquez

Music: Daniel Osterstock

Welcome back to the “Death in The Garden” podcast! A lot changed for us over the past 4 months, and we’ve needed to take some time to figure out how to proceed with the film/podcast/writing project in light of a change in resources. But we’re back!

As a preface to what is to come, we’re sharing today a reading of a short myth-inspired tale that Maren wrote last year, which was inspired by the works of Daniel Quinn. The podcast, to follow, will be centered around audio essays, produced with original and licensed music and soundscapes, sound effects, and other audio elements, such as snippets of interviews we conduct. While conversational interviews will continue to happen, those interviews will be released only for paid subscribers on Substack and Patreon, though we plan to phase out Patreon in the coming months.

HOUSEKEEPING:

If you want to support the project, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription on Substack.

The Beekeeper’s Granddaughter

Additionally, we are now sponsored by Jake’s parent’s small-business, The Beekeeper’s Granddaughter, which makes handmade grass-finished, pasture-raised whipped tallow balms - the best, all-natural skincare we’ve ever used! Use coupon code DITG20 at check-out to receive 20% off your order.

Check out The Beekeeper’s Granddaughter website (designed by us!).

If you’ve never tried tallow for skincare or are unsure which scent is your favorite, try out our .5 oz Starter Pack! This pack comes with all 6 of our scents, 1 of which has yet to be released in the other sizes.

Follow our Instagram for more info about tallow and deals (but, let’s be honest, our listeners get the best coupon regardless). We’re the media team for the business, so your support of Jake’s parents supports us, too!

ARQETYPE MEDIA

We have recently released a show reel, so if you’d like to check that out, head to our website, ARQETYPE MEDIA, for more info about how to work with us!

We have a lot of really cool things in the works right now (particularly for The Lord of the Rings nerds, but we’ll say no more on that), and can’t wait to release and share more about our upcoming projects as they unfold. Thank you for sticking around with us through all of the changes.

Before you leave, please, we beg of you, listen to this song by Nothing But Thieves:

In fact, just do yourself a favor and listen to every song by Nothing But Thieves.

Audio editing: Jake Marquez and Maren Morgan

Soundscapes: Jake Marquez and Maren Morgan

This week on “Death in The Garden,” Jake and Maren share their interview with Dr. Greg Stone, a renowned oceanographer, deep sea diver, conservationist, author (Ice Island, Soul of the Sea), and host of the podcast “The Sea Has Many Voices.” Greg founded the Ocean Health Index and created the world’s first ocean protected area, the Phoenix Islands Protected Area, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site the size of California! Currently, he serves as the Chief Ocean Scientist for DeepGreen Resources, a company which specializes in a more sustainable mining modality of collecting polymetallic nodules from the sea floor. In this episode we discuss the urgency around climate change, the importance of a cultural renaissance of our ethics and morals surrounding our relationship with the environment in which we live, and the realities around a renewable future.

Check out Greg and all of the wonderful, inspiring work he is doing for our oceans, and be sure to watch his Ted Talk.

Please rate, review, and subscribe if you enjoy this project, and check out our website and Instagram for more information.

Editing: Jake Marquez

Music: Daniel Osterstock

This week on “Death in The Garden,” Jake and Maren had a deep conversation with James Connolly, producer of the documentary Sacred Cow (Diana Rodgers and Robb Wolf, 2020) and guest host of the podcast “Sustainable Dish” also by Diana Rodgers. We talk about the mythos of civilization, critiques of the commodifying education system, the designed hierarchy of society, the religion of science, our propensity to seek out gurus & unintegrated spirituality, and so many other nuances of the world’s problems. You’ll just have to listen to catch it all— we go deep! We also shit-talk Elon Musk.

This show will be co-released on the “Sustainable Dish” podcast, so go check them out, too!

You can find James on Instagram: @primatekitchen @accidentalhost

Please leave us a rating, review, and subscribe to the show if you are enjoying what we’re doing! Check out our website deathinthegarden.org and our Instagram @deathinthegarden for more.

Editing: Jake Marquez

Music: Daniel Osterstock

This week on the “Death in The Garden” podcast, we’re sharing our interview with Evan Walbridge, project coordinator & land steward at White Buffalo Land Trust, an up-and-coming Savory hub in Southern California. We talk about how designing the built world in relation to ecology is one of the greatest changes we can make as a species, the importance of having a continual relationship with the cycles of life and death, and the nuances of regenerative agriculture. You can find him on Instagram @echoes_of_logic and learn more about the amazing things happening at White Buffalo Land Trust at their website: https://www.whitebuffalolandtrust.org/

Please rate, review, and subscribe! For more information about our project please check out our Instagram @deathinthegarden & deathinthegarden.org

Editing: Jake Marquez

Music: Daniel Osterstock

This week on the “Death in The Garden” Podcast, we share our interview with Connor Jones, permaculture designer & educator, and owner of the permaculture homestead, East End Eden in Ojai, California. We met up with Connor at the beginning of the summer and were enchanted by his property and equanimity. In this episode we discuss permaculture, the viability of a vegan diet, the emotionality of killing, how to truly not be “anti-science”, and the importance of nuance in the process of shifting cultural paradigms. Please rate, review, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, and check out our website for more information about our project.

Editing: Jake Marquez

Music: Daniel Osterstock