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Explore every episode of the podcast For The Wild
Dive into the complete episode list for For The Wild. Each episode is cataloged with detailed descriptions, making it easy to find and explore specific topics. Keep track of all episodes from your favorite podcast and never miss a moment of insightful content.
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| SLOW STUDY ANNOUNCEMENT - We Will Dance With Mountains: Vunja! with Bayo Akomolafe | 20 Dec 2024 | 00:06:01 | |
For The Wild is thrilled to share that we’re launching our second Slow Study with Bayo Akomolafe and The Emergence Network. These slow studies are a unique collaboration between The Emergence Network and For The Wild focused on making the We Will Dance With Mountains course accessible in an asynchronous, self-paced manner so you can embrace slowness and integration in your study. The segments featured in this Slow Study were recorded in 2023 as part of the We Will Dance With Mountains: Vunja! live sessions attended by over 1400 people around the world. We have edited the conversations and added supplementary materials so that you are able to go about this immersive, transformative course at your own pace. The full package includes eight audio sessions with lectures, practices, music, poetry, and conversation from Bayo and his brilliant crew of co-conspirators. These are accompanied by recorded practice prompts from Jiordi Rosales and a text-based coursebook with details on each session and additional extrapolations. For The Wild is deeply grateful to Bayo and our partners at The Emergence Network for this collaboration. We hope you enjoy this experience. Welcome to the carnival, let’s dive into the cracks!
The slow study course will officially launch on December 30th, and those who order during presale will receive the digital download of the course then.
To celebrate those ordering early- use code SLOWSTUDY10 to take 10% off of your purchase.
Visit forthewild.world/Vunja to learn more and purchase! | |||
| FOR THE WILD on Slow Media | 24 Apr 2024 | 00:05:36 | |
We’re calling in slow media. Feeling into the need for slow, emotionally grounded, and resonant content, we’ll be pausing weekly episodes to fully embody a slow media approach. The past ten years of interviews have shown us how media should be slow, rooted, and steadying, and this shift to slow media will honor all that we have learned from years of beautiful conversations. Over the coming months, we will be bringing you print, film, long form media, deeply focused podcast series, and in-person events that will center community and connection. We invite you to dive in deep with us. Stay tuned to our socials, newsletter, website, and podcast feed for updates and announcements! We’re embracing content that is deeply-rooted, resourced rather than reactionary, and that offers perspectives based on lived, tangible experiences. Society is moving at an inhuman and inhumane pace right now. Rather than submitting to a culture of constant productivity, we are focusing on moving at the earth’s pace. We’re answering to nature, spirit, and community, not to the clock. We need our community of support more than ever to make this happen. Join us on Patreon at patreon.com/forthewild where you’ll get special updates on our projects, or make a one time donation at forthewild.world/support Music by noah klein. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full description, references, and action points. | |||
| ERIK ASSADOURIAN on Dreams of the Long Future /366 | 21 Feb 2024 | 00:58:00 | |
Introducing listeners to his way of worship and connection to the Earth, this week’s guest Erik Assadourian offers insight into the religious framing and practical applications of the Gaian way. Erik shares his spiritual path of recognizing interdependence with the Earth and shares how he dreams towards a future where we exist in a mutualistic relationship to the Earth. Ranging from topics of degrowth to tangible spiritual practices for connection to the Earth and its seasons, Erik’s wisdom and groundedness is a balm for those tired by the rhetoric of our overculture. Together, Erik and Ayana consider the value of spirituality and theology while also reckoning with the complicated and often harmful ways such ideologies have been applied throughout human history. Taking this into mind, the conversation delves into our culture of consumerism and extraction while also considering the philosophies and paradigm shifts that may guide us out of it. Using religion and connection to the sustaining force of the Earth as a guide, how might we build communities of care not just for humanity, but for the Earth itself? In a time when so many of our environmental fights feel urgent, Erik calls listeners to consider how we might build a culture and framework of environmentalism meant to propel us through to a long future. Erik Assadourian is the director of the Gaian Way, a spiritual philosophy and practicing religious community. He is also a sustainability researcher and writer. Erik was a researcher with Worldwatch Institute from 2001 until its end in 2017. At Worldwatch, he directed or codirected seven books, focusing on consumerism, eco-education, global security, sustainable communities, and economic degrowth. Music by Algorhythm.Code. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
| GIULIANA FURCI on the Divine Time of Fungal Evolution [ENCORE] /289 | 01 Jun 2022 | 01:10:11 | |
This week we are rebroadcasting our interview with Giuliana Furci originally aired in June of 2021. So often fungi are pitched as being at the forefront of innovation, whether being used to create vegan leather, pharmaceuticals, or being incorporated into various biotechnology products, but this fixation on innovation can obscure our ancestral relationship to fungi and the wisdom they can share with us about decomposition. This week, we slow down to acknowledge the beauty and power of fungal decomposition with guest Giuliana Furci who shares a lesson in divine time, the transformation of energy, and the necessity of decomposition. Take a moment this week to learn about fungi’s profound interspecies companionship and the simple reality that the world cannot regenerate itself without fungi. Additionally, to learn even more about these topics, look into supporting Fungi Foundation by joining them for their Fungi Foundation Virtual Speaker Event and Fundraiser on June 26th via their profile and webpage. Giuliana Furci is foundress and CEO of the Fungi Foundation, the first international non-profit dedicated to fungi and founded in Chile. She is also the first female mycologist in Chile. For more information about her work visit www.ffungi.org.Music by Roma Ransom, Rajna Swaminathan, and Julio Kintu.Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
| K’ASHEECHTLAA - LOUISE BRADY on Restoring the Sacred [ENCORE] /288 | 25 May 2022 | 00:57:56 | |
This week we are rebroadcasting our interview with K’asheechtlaa (Louise Brady) originally aired in April of 2021. Many of us have access to more choices than we ever thought imaginable, in fact, it is quite easy to find ourselves amidst an abundance of products, eating foods cultivated across the world, or selecting from a myriad of variations of the same “thing”. But this “abundance” of choice masks ecological depletion, and as we gain access to that which is far from our homes, actual place-based abundance is often jeopardized. This week on the podcast we explore this in context to herring in Southeast Alaska with guest K’asheechtlaa (Louise Brady). Everything from chinook, seals, whales, eagles, halibut, and dolphins, all depend on herring directly or indirectly. In addition to nourishing so much of the Pacific marine ecosystem, these kin are embedded in the culture and spirit of Sheetʼká (Sitka). But as herring have been utilized in pet food, fertilizer, fish meal for aquariums and salmon farms, and marketed as a delicacy abroad - fisheries have been mismanaged by the state of Alaska and overfished to near extinction. K’asheechtlaa is a woman of the Tlingit nation in Sheetʼká Ḵwáan, an island off the coast of Southeast Alaska. She is Raven-Frog or Kiks.ádi Clan, Kiks.ádi women are known as the herring ladies, they have a story or original instruction that connects them spiritually, culturally, and historically to herring. K’asheechtlaa is the founder of the Herring Protectors, a grassroots movement of people that share concerns that the herring population in Sheetʼká Ḵwáan, and the culture tied to it, are under threat. Music by Lake Mary, The Ascent of Everest, Alexandra Blakely, and Fountainsun. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
| InTheField: NUSKMATA (Jacinda Mack) on the Gold Rush That Never Ended [ENCORE] /287 | 18 May 2022 | 01:04:59 | |
This week we are rebroadcasting our interview with Nuskmata (Jacinda Mack) originally aired in February of 2020. From roller coaster rides at Disney World to museums dotting the Pacific Northwest, symbols of mining and the Gold Rush remain deeply enshrined in the collective imagination of the mythic West. Hidden beneath this cultural veneer, the material realities of today’s superscale mining are often out of sight, out of mind. In this week’s In The Field episode, we trace the historical contours and material legacy of the mining industry across so-called British Columbia, unearthing stories from a region that bears an estimated 1,100 abandoned mines, 150-year-old mining laws, and more mining exploration companies than anywhere else on Earth. Guided by the raw testimony of mother, water protector, and organizer Nuskmata (Jacinda Mack), this episode braids together the history of the Gold Rush and colonization in B.C., the state of salmon, the practice of free, prior, and informed consent, dirty mining for a “clean” energy revolution, and the urgent necessity of reform.Music by Cary Morin, Compassion Gorilla, Lynx and the Servants of Song, The Mynabirds, The Melawmen Collective, and The Honey Tongues.Please visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
| ALOK on Unruly Beauty [ENCORE] /286 | 11 May 2022 | 01:20:22 | |
This week we are rebroadcasting our interview with ALOK, originally aired in August of 2021.“I validate the idea that survival is the ultimate act of creation in a world that has reduced us to fascist arithmetic, of being a quantitative statistic, not a human soul. So we still found a way to care, love, and create - isn't that art? I teach people to decipher the art that they’re already doing, recognize the artistry and the everyday miracles of life around them, and create from that place.” This week we immerse ourselves in the aforementioned call to recognize the myriad of creations all around us from guest ALOK, who guides us in an ever-expansive dialogue around spiritual wellbeing, the importance of creative literacy, and the tremendous freedom that awaits us when we make gender unknowable. We begin our conversation by foregrounding the importance of moving out of the paradigm of understanding trans and queer as something that is exclusive to the body. Instead, ALOK shares how challenging the gender binary is not only in service to our collective wellbeing but is a reverential offering in acknowledging our true celestial expansiveness that has been dimmed under binarism, heteronormativity, and colonialism. ALOK is a gender non-conforming writer and performance artist. Their distinctive style and poetic challenge to the gender binary have been internationally renowned. As a mixed-media artist Alok uses poetry, prose, comedy, performance, fashion design, and portraiture to explore themes of gender, race, trauma, belonging, and the human condition. They are the author of Femme in Public (2017) and Beyond the Gender Binary (2020).Music by Soda Lite, Rising Appalachia, and Lady Moon & The Eclipse. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
| Dr. BAYO AKOMOLAFE on Slowing Down in Urgent Times [ENCORE] /285 | 04 May 2022 | 01:27:24 | |
This week we are rebroadcasting our interview with Dr. Bayo Akomolafe, originally aired in January of 2020. Our hearts and minds are set to work by the urgent eco-social crises of this time. Caught in a cultural twitch of frenetic production and the sticky paradigms of modernity, we’ve penned vocabulary and designed technologies, manufactured frameworks and crunched numbers in an effort to diagnose and “treat” planetary collapse. We are invited by this week’s guest, Dr. Bayo Akomolafe, to pause and abandon solutionism, step back from the project of progress, and dance into a different set of questions: What does the Anthropocene teach us as a destabilizing agent that resists our taming? How can we show up in our movements of justice if “the ways we respond to crisis is part of the crisis”? What happens when we unfurl into a space of slowness and relinquish human mastery to a wider cosmic net of relations? Bayo Akomolafe (Ph.D.) considers his most sacred work to be learning how to be with his daughter and son, Alethea Aanya and Kyah Jayden—and their mother, his wife and "life-nectar,” Ijeoma. An author, speaker, renegade academic, and proud father, Bayo is Chief Curator and Director of The Emergence Network, a constellation of humans and nonhumans working together trans-locally to curate projects, rituals, conversations and events that nurture senses of the otherwise via practices that trouble the traditional boundaries of agency and possibility. Bayo is also a visiting professor at Middlebury College, Vermont, and has taught in universities around the world. He is a consultant with UNESCO, leading efforts for the Imagining Africa’s Future (IAF) project. Bayo has authored two books, We Will Tell Our Own Story! and These Wilds Beyond our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity’s Search for Home, and has penned forewords for many others.Music by Daniel HiggsVisit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
| Dr. KIM TALLBEAR on Reviving Kinship and Sexual Abundance [ENCORE] /284 | 27 Apr 2022 | 01:01:11 | |
This week we are rebroadcasting our interview with Dr. Kim TallBear originally aired in February of 2020. Intimacy and sexuality is the soil that gives rise to creativity, pleasure and regeneration of new life. As mainstream understandings of sex, marriage, and family shift, Dr. Kim TallBear highlights how the colonial project of nation-building disrupted the vitality of Indigenous kinship by imposing heteronormative monogamous marriage and the nuclear family structure. How have these constraints bred hyper-sexualized, paradoxical and fetishized beliefs that degrade relationships, wellbeing of communities and the land? Dr. Kim TallBear is Associate Professor, Faculty of Native Studies, University of Alberta, and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples, Technoscience & Environment. By unraveling the doctrines of scarcity and separation, we are challenged to shatter pervasive beliefs of boundaries, binaries, and scarcity within our relations. Music by M83, Frazey Ford & FRASE. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
| RUTH ŁCHAV'AYA K'ISEN MILLER on Relations of Reciprocity [ENCORE] /283 | 20 Apr 2022 | 01:06:50 | |
This week we are rebroadcasting our interview with Ruth Łchav’aya K’isen Miller, originally aired in September of 2021. “If this new green economy continues to perpetuate the same ethos that resource extraction has, we will not find any solutions and we will see our suffering perpetuated.” Heeding this call from Ruth Łchav’aya K’isen Miller, we explore the fruitful spaces between radical imagination, public policy, and on-the-ground activism as we think about what it means to take meaningful steps towards creating a non-extractive future. In this week’s episode, Ruth shares how tending to the future must center Indigenous values and lifeways. With this in mind, we look at the totality of what a “just transition” can offer us beyond limited definitions shaped by economics, policy, and job growth. Instead, Ruth shares the ways in which a just transition can be understood as a cyclical movement inspired by kinship, care, and reciprocity. Ruth Łchav’aya K’isen Miller is a Dena'ina Athabaskan and Ashkenazi Russian Jewish woman, raised in Dgheyay Kaq (Anchorage), Alaska. She is a member of the Curyung Tribe from the Lake Clark region and also has roots in Bristol Bay. Ruth is the Climate Justice and Just Transition Director for Native Movement, a matriarchal grassroots Indigenous organization that fights for the rights of Indigenous peoples. She has worked many years towards climate justice and a regenerative economy for all on her lands and beyond, her work also includes international advocacy. She is a daughter, a granddaughter, an aunty, a language learner, a traditional beadworker, and a subsistence fisherwomxn.Music by Madelyn Ilana, Høly River, and Mariee Sioux. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
| WOMAN STANDS SHINING (Pat McCabe) on Humanity's Homecoming [ENCORE] /282 | 13 Apr 2022 | 01:22:01 | |
This week we are rebroadcasting our interview with Woman Stands Shining (Pat McCabe), originally aired in September of 2021. In the fast-paced movement of today’s media, it’s easy to become entangled in narratives of extinction, loss, a lack of time, and a tremendous amount of misanthropy. However, when we pause to look within the ecosystems around us we can find examples of life pushing through the most difficult of circumstances. Our more than human kin continues in defiance, refusing to cease their own lineage under the current modern paradigm of exploitation and desecration. In this week’s episode, we look into a thriving life paradigm, which places a reverences for life at the center of all action, with guest Woman Stands Shining (Pat McCabe). In this expansive conversation, Woman Stands Shining coalesces topics of Indigenous sovereignty, land back, how gender and consent behave in different paradigms, and the vital importance of moving out of modernity’s obsession with intellectualism as the primary way of knowing, into a powerful call to choose a timeless paradigm that is life-affirming for us all. Woman Stands Shining (Pat McCabe) is a Diné grandmother, activist, artist, and international speaker. Her primary work is proposing to the Five-Fingered-Ones, that paradigm is a choice, and pointing to Indigenous cultures as examples that we have evidence that human beings can participate in paradigms in which we can become beings capable of causing all life to thrive. Music by The Range of Light Wilderness, Violet Bell, and Sea Stars. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
| PRENTIS HEMPHILL on Choosing Belonging [ENCORE] /281 | 06 Apr 2022 | 00:59:59 | |
This week we are rebroadcasting our interview with Prentis Hemphill, originally aired in July of 2021. “There's no magical return. We're not all going to return to an unblemished time in history, and if we know that...what do we have to do? Who needs to have conversation with whom? Who needs to heal what relationship? Who needs to ask for what permission? Who needs to offer something back?” This week on the podcast, Prentis Hemphill offers us these questions in conversation about how we can be in relationship with each other at this very moment in time. In recognition of the tremendous intricacies of our experiences when it comes to our collective histories, forced severances, and the manipulation of trauma in our society, Prentis shares how embodiment is a resource that allows us to connect with the Earth, recognize grief as an entry point, and shape the impossible into possible. Prentis Hemphill is a movement facilitator, Somatics teacher, and practitioner, working at the convergence of healing, collective transformation, and political organizing. At present, Prentis is the founder and leader of The Embodiment Institute and The Black Embodiment Initiative as well as host of the Finding Our Way Podcast.Music by Tan Cologne, This Flame I Carry, and The Breath.Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
| Dr. VANDANA SHIVA on the Promise of the Commons /280 | 30 Mar 2022 | 01:01:34 | |
In this episode of For the Wild, Ayana and returning guest Dr. Vandana Shiva discuss the crumbling of the colonial paradigm and the promise of re-commoning the commons for our collective future. Situating us in the exigency of food and seed sovereignty for our present time, Dr. Shiva reminds us that seeds and living systems are not open access systems to be privatized, patented, or exploited. Rather, the commons are central to all of life. In this multifaceted episode, we discuss threats to the commons by Big Tech; the brilliance and sophistication of Indigenous seed cultures and breeding, the toxicity of GMO crops for our bodies and the planet, the benefits of agroecological farming, and the need for diversity in our ecosystems and justice movements. Tying the green-washed quest by tech barons to digitalize the world to legacies of colonialism and imperialism under a similar “civilizing” mission, Dr. Shiva warns that the ruling class operates from a place of fear of any being alive and free on their own terms. We end this conversation with a call to a paradigm shift away from capitalism, control and fear to one of partnership with the earth. Vandana Shiva is a world-renowned environmental thinker and activist, a leader in the International Forum on Globalisation and of the Slow Food Movement. Founder of Navdanya and of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, and a tireless crusader for farmers’, peasants’, and women’s rights, she is author and editor of many influential books, including two from Synergetic Press, Reclaiming the Commons: Biodiversity, Indigenous Wisdom, and the Rights of Mother Earth (2020) and the forthcoming Philanthrocapitalism and the Erosion of Democracy: A Global Citizens’ Report on the Corporate Control of Technology, Health, and Agriculture, which is slated for release in February 2022.Music by Peals, Peia, and Kaivalya. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
| MERLIN SHELDRAKE on Embodied Entanglements /365 | 14 Feb 2024 | 00:56:01 | |
Winding through questions of philosophy, science, and meaning making, this week’s episode brings together vital thoughts on what it means to live an embodied life in an entangled world. Guest Merlin Sheldrake shares the motivations that drew him to study fungi and the complex ways this study has shaped his life and thought. As Merlin shares, “An account of life that doesn't include fungi is an account of a living world that doesn’t exist.” Our relationship with fungi is non-negotiable. Merlin invites listeners to pay attention to what this relationship means and how it shapes not only our lives, but the entanglement of life across the world. With this, Merlin also shares the ways fungal life offers a diversity of expressions and possibilities – offering up the perspective that the diversity and complexity of relationship and expression is what makes life fertile. Across the episode, Merlin and Ayana contemplate the history and meaning of science, and come to see life as a process and a relationship. The meaning we make does not come out of a vacuum, but rather out of relationship. Life itself, in its many forms, is improvisational. Understanding this, we are left with the provocation: How might we speak to the world, rather than about it? Merlin is a biologist and author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures, a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller, and winner of the Royal Society Book Prize and the Wainwright Prize. Merlin is a research associate of the Vrije University Amsterdam, and works with the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks and the Fungi Foundation. A keen brewer and fermenter, he is fascinated by the relationships that arise between humans and more-than-human organisms. (merlinsheldrake.com) Music by Matthewdavid. Visit our website at https://www.forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
| SII-AM HAMILTON on Respect-Based Futures [ENCORE] /279 | 23 Mar 2022 | 00:58:18 | |
This week we are rebroadcasting our interview with Sii-am Hamilton, originally aired in November of 2020. In this powerful conversation with land defender Sii-am Hamilton, we are invited to discuss futuristic ways forward in recognition that Indigenous communities have been practicing creative resistance against colonialism and capitalism for hundreds of years. We begin by discussing what is currently transpiring on Wet’suwet’en territories and how colonial governments are using the current pandemic (and will use future crises) to roll back regulatory measures and push development full force. Sii-am offers a holistic reflection on frontline land defense and the extent to which violence is afflicted upon land defenders, and resource extraction participants, by transnational corporations, while also reorienting us to the reality that just, dignified, and brilliant futures already exist but are not given attention, curiosity, or love because they do not serve corporate profit. Sii-am Hamilton is a land defender and traditional knowledge holder born in occupied Hupacasath territory to mother Kwitsel Tatel and father Ron Hamilton. Their experience stems from time on the land, feast culture, and living traditional law and protocol. They are a qualified hand poke tattoo artist as well as a song holder. Sii-am has been raised in political organization, land title, and grassroots activism since childhood, and now specializes in publicity/media promotion of environmental and land sovereignty movements.Music by Elisapie.Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references and action points. | |||
| adrienne maree brown on Writing Our Future /278 | 18 Mar 2022 | 00:27:26 | |
What does a just climate future look like? In this bonus episode Ayana and guest adrienne maree brown discuss Imagine 2200, Fix’s climate-fiction contest, which recognizes stories that envision the next 180 years of equitable climate progress, imagining intersectional worlds of abundance, adaptation, reform, and hope. Turning towards fueling the imagination, this episode touches on stewarding a just future and the value of presence with ourselves, each other, and the movements we dedicate ourselves to. We are in a battle for our attention and for our imaginations. The winner will determine the future of the climate and of humanity. Facing this reality, and the reality of a changing climate is not easy, but despair around this can bring us closer to the earth and to each other when it is used as a learning tool. In the shift from panic to practice, visionary fiction is vital medicine, and adrienne guides us to stretch our minds to see a future beyond what the confines of white supremacy, colonialism, heteropatriarchy, and capitalism tell us is possible. adrienne maree brown is the writer-in-residence at the Emergent Strategy Ideation Institute, and author of Grievers (the first novella in a trilogy on the Black Dawn imprint), Holding Change: The Way of Emergent Strategy Facilitation and Mediation, We Will Not Cancel Us and Other Dreams of Transformative Justice, Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good, Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds and the co-editor of Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction from Social Justice Movements and How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office. She is the co-host of the How to Survive the End of the World, Octavia’s Parables, and Emergent Strategy podcasts. adrienne is rooted in Detroit.Music by Nia Simone and The Mysterious They. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
| CORRINA GOULD on Settler Responsibility and Reciprocity [ENCORE] /277 | 16 Mar 2022 | 01:03:32 | |
This week we are rebroadcasting our interview with Corinna Gould, originally aired in November of 2020. Prior to settler development and extraction, the landscapes and lifeways of Ohlone territory were richly abundant with acorns, grass seeds, wildflowers, elk, salmon, grizzly bears, and berries. In this week’s episode of For The Wild, guest Corrina Gould reminds us that Ohlone territory still holds tremendous abundance and that the land can sustain us in a way that would provide for our wellbeing should we choose to really re-examine what it is we need to survive. But more than a conversation on the wealth of the land, we explore responsibility and reciprocity on stolen homelands by asking what it means to be in right relationship? How can we foster integrity in conservation and land restoration work amidst a world that continues to peddle scarcity, greed, and extraction? How can folks contribute to the re-storying of the land, even if through small acts? Corrina Gould is the spokesperson for the Confederated Villages of Lisjan/Ohlone. She is an activist that has worked on preserving and protecting the ancient burial sites of her ancestors in the Bay Area for decades. She is the Co-founder and a Lead Organizer for Indian People Organizing for Change and co-founder of the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust.Music by Shayna Gladstone and Amo Amo.Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
| ELLA NOAH BANCROFT on the Intelligence of Our Intimacy [ENCORE] /276 | 09 Mar 2022 | 01:10:35 | |
This week we are rebroadcasting our interview with Ella Noah Bancroft, originally aired in March of 2021. “We forget that so much is given freely, that this world is meant to be enjoyed.” We heed this powerful reminder by guest Ella Noah Bancroft. As our belief systems have become entwined with the dominant economic structure, we see the commodification of our wellness, intimacy, and connectivity - a phenomenon that is severely hindering our ability to connect authentically. In conversation, Ella traces the powerful connection between our ability to go against mainstream capitalist ways of being and our capacity for deep connection with ourselves and each other. With intimacy as an entrance point, our conversation explores what happens when we derive our pleasure from extraction, the kind of deep embodiment and connectivity that threatens capitalistic and colonial structures, and how we can journey back into spaces of trust through practices that don’t have to cost us a thing. Ella Noah Bancroft is a Bundjalung woman based in the Northern New South Wales, Australia. Ella identifies as mixed heritage Indigenous, gay woman. She grew up living in both worlds, her Indigenous world and the mainstream Australian world. Both challenged her identity in different ways. She is an Australian born artist, storyteller, mentor and founder of “The Returning” and Yhi Collective. Music by Harrison Foster, Lady Moon & The Eclipse, and Sucúlima. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
| MIKE PHILLIPS on Gray Wolves and the Vitality of Death [ENCORE] /275 | 02 Mar 2022 | 01:00:06 | |
This week we are rebroadcasting our interview with Mike Phillips which originally aired in January of 2020. Not long ago, packs of gray wolves roamed freely across so-called North America from the grassy prairies of Florida to the snow-capped peaks of Colorado. Alongside a growing agricultural industry and settler expansion West, the U.S. government marshalled a perverse, ruthless campaign to systematically eradicate the gray wolf, a symbol of the “untamed” wild, driving this keystone species to the brink of extinction. Since the 1970s, the slow process of wolf recovery has begun, but the gray wolf remains endangered by human activity and ensnared in a dark mythic past. On this week’s episode, we speak with Mike Phillips, a conservationist and longtime ally of gray wolves, who gives voice to these great ecological engineers and their elemental place within the balance of life. Mike Phillips has served as the Executive Director of the Turner Endangered Species Fund and advisor to the Turner Biodiversity Divisions since he co-founded both with Ted Turner in June 1997. Prior to that Mike had worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service since 1981. During his employment with the Department of Interior Mike served as the leader of historic efforts to restore red wolves to the southeastern US and gray wolves to Yellowstone National Park. He also conducted important research on the impacts of oil and gas development on grizzly bears in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, predation costs for gray wolves in Alaska, black bear movements in northeastern North Carolina, and dingo ecology in Australia. In 2006, Mike was elected to the Montana legislature where he served as the representative for House District 66 in Bozeman until 2012 when he was elected to the Montana Senate. Music by Mac DemarcoVisit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
| BRONTË VELEZ on the Necessity of Beauty, Part 2 [ENCORE] /274 | 23 Feb 2022 | 00:47:51 | |
This week we are rebroadcasting part two of our interview with brontë velez (they/them), originally aired in October of 2019. We dive into the capacity for pleasure amidst times of great uncertainty and historical oppression. What does “pleasure in the apocalypse” mean? As brontë defines it, pleasure is what makes us come alive, so how can we create a culture that is deeply attuned to our senses and directs our desire towards Earth and each other? By feeding our senses, how might we confront the isolation and industrialization of our bodies, while acknowledging the limitations of grief in that “suffering is not accountable to the Earth.”brontë’s work and rest is guided by the call that “black wellness is the antithesis to state violence” (Mark Anthony Johnson). As a black-latinx transdisciplinary artist, designer, trickster, educator and wakeworker, their eco-social art praxis lives at the intersections of black feminist placemaking, abolitionist theologies, environmental regeneration and death doulaship. they embody this commitment of attending to black health/imagination, commemorative justice (Free Egunfemi) and hospicing the shit that hurts black folks and the land through serving as creative director for Lead to Life design collective and ecological educator for ancestral arts skills and nature-connection school Weaving Earth. they are currently co-conjuring a mockumentary with esperanza spalding in collaboration with the San Francisco Symphony and stewarding land with their partner in unceded Kashia Pomo territory in northern California.Mostly, brontë is up to the sweet tender rhythm of quotidian black queer-lifemaking, ever-committed to humor & liberation, ever-marked by grief at the distance made between us and all of life —"Music by Jennifer Johns and members of the Thrive Choir and Jiordi Rosales on cello. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
| BRONTË VELEZ on the Pleasurable Surrender of White Supremacy, Part 1 [ENCORE]/273 | 16 Feb 2022 | 00:56:28 | |
This week we are rebroadcasting our interview with brontë velez, originally aired in October of 2019. brontë velez opens this week’s episode inviting us to think about how submission to Earth is an invitation into a more life affirming world. What does a future look like in which white, human, and patriarchal supremacy surrenders its power in an act of pleasure? In Part One of this expansive conversation, Ayana and brontë delve into topics surrounding authentic expression, the distortion of feminine and masculine powers, beauty and aesthetics, queerness, dominatrix energy, and power as agency. brontë velez (they/them) is guided in work and rest, by the call that “black wellness is the antithesis to state violence” (Mark Anthony Johnson). as a black-latinx transdisciplinary artist, designer, trickster, educator and wakeworker, their eco-social art praxis lives at the intersections of black feminist placemaking, abolitionist theologies, environmental regeneration and death doulaship. they embody this commitment of attending to black health/imagination, commemorative justice (Free Egunfemi) and hospicing the shit that hurts black folks and the land through serving as creative director for Lead to Life design collective and ecological educator for ancestral arts skills and nature-connection school Weaving Earth. they are currently co-conjuring a mockumentary with esperanza spalding in collaboration with the San Francisco Symphony and stewarding land with their partner in unceded Kashia Pomo territory in northern California.mostly, brontë is up to the sweet tender rhythm of quotidian black queer-lifemaking, ever-committed to humor & liberation, ever-marked by grief at the distance made between us and all of life. At the end of this episode, listeners hear an excerpt from The Well prophecy, written by brontë velez and recited by brontë velez, Ra Malika Imhotep co-founder of the Church of Black Feminist Thought and Jazmin Calderon Torres and Liz Kennedy from Lead to Life.Music by Esperanza Spalding. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
| Dr. KATE STAFFORD on What the Whales Hear [ENCORE] /272 | 09 Feb 2022 | 01:04:05 | |
This week we are rebroadcasting our interview with Dr. Kate Stafford, originally aired in September of 2020. The bowhead whale can live up to 200 years old, meaning that the bowhead whales of today know and remember a world that sounded, tasted, and felt very different than the one we live in. Perhaps their living memory has yet to normalize marine pollution, anthropogenic sounds, and the underwater effects of globalization and heavy industrialization. In this episode of For The Wild with Dr. Kate Stafford, we listen to the many songs the ocean body sings, asking; how does a warming climate alter the Arctic’s soundscape? Why are the waters of the Arctic becoming louder, and what does this mean for kin like the bowhead? Dr. Kate Stafford’s research focuses on using passive acoustic monitoring to examine migratory movements, geographic variation, and physical drivers of marine mammals, particularly large whales. She has worked all over the world from the tropics to the poles and is fortunate enough to have seen (and recorded) blue whales in every ocean in which they occur. Kate’s current research focuses on the changing acoustic environment of the Arctic and how changes, from sea ice declines to increasing industrial human use, may be influencing subarctic and Arctic marine mammals. Kate Stafford is a Senior Principal Oceanographer at the Applied Physics Lab and an affiliate Associate Professor in the School of Oceanography at the University of Washington in Seattle. | |||
| CHRIS HEDGES on Deflating the Ruling Elite through Civil Disobedience [ENCORE] /271 | 02 Feb 2022 | 00:58:24 | |
This week we are rebroadcasting our interview with Chris Hedges, originally aired in June of 2019. All too often our conversations around the consolidation of wealth and power in America blindly fixate on the politics of the Right and Trump as the anti-hero archetype. We must deepen our analyses and rethink our movements beyond the two-party divide in order to truly understand and hold accountable the socio-political and economic forces that have brought us to such a crisis. This week, we speak with journalist and author Chris Hedges who guides us through the history and inner workings of neoliberalism, the rise of corporate capitalism, and our descent into fascism. Chris Hedges is a Truthdig columnist, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, a New York Times best-selling author, a professor in the college degree program offered to New Jersey state prisoners by Rutgers University, and an ordained Presbyterian minister. He has written 12 books and writes a weekly column for the website Truthdig and hosts a show, “On Contact,” on RT America. Hedges spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. Music by Charlie Parr. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
| MICHAEL MEADE on Cultivating Mythic Imagination [ENCORE] /270 | 26 Jan 2022 | 00:57:29 | |
This week we are rebroadcasting our interview with Michael Meade, originally aired in June of 2019. The crises of cosmological, mythological and psychological disconnection from nature, from ourselves, and from each other may drive us to places of darkness and suffering; and yet there is great potential in that darkness to interact with creative energy. Retracing meaning through archetypal myth offers an opportunity to understand the great challenge of our time to heal the planet from its wounds, and to refresh our dominant worldview with one based on connection and imagination. This week, journey into Michael Meade’s expansive vision of awakening ancient meaning for the individual and collective consciousness. Michael Meade, D.H.L., is a renowned storyteller, author, and scholar ofmythology, anthropology, and psychology. He combines hypnotic storytelling,street-savvy perceptiveness, and spellbinding interpretations of ancient mythswith a deep knowledge of cross-cultural rituals. He is the author of The GeniusMyth, Fate and Destiny: The Two Agreements of The Soul, Why the WorldDoesn’t End, The Water of Life: Initiation and the Tempering of the Soul andeditor, with James Hillman and Robert Bly, of Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart. Meade is the founder of Mosaic Multicultural Foundation, a nonprofit network ofartists, activists, and community builders that encourages greater understandingbetween diverse peoples.Music by Izaak Opatz.Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
| SKY HOPINKA on What We Pass On /364 | 07 Feb 2024 | 00:56:11 | |
This week, Ayana is joined by Sky Hopinka in a conversation that dives deep into the meaning of art and film and the stories and emotions we share between generations. Sky grounds the conversation in his incredible expertise and thoughtful approach to media. Touching on the very questions of who we are and how we make meaning, the questions in this conversation cut to the core of what it means to be human. The conversation is a beautiful exploration of art, Indigeneity, intergenerational pain, and the way we make meaning in times like these. Weaving together the ephemeral worlds of emotion and identity with the grounding power of shared values and reciprocity, Sky reminds us that art is meant to provoke, inspire, and make the space needed for feeling to emerge. Sky Hopinka was born and raised in Northern Washington State and Southern California. He's a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation and descendent of the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians. His video, photo, and text work centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and landscape, designs of language as containers of culture expressed through personal, documentary, and non fiction forms of media. His work has played at various festivals including Sundance, Toronto International Film Festival, and the New York Film Festival. Music by Arushi Jain. The artwork for this episode is Sky Hopinka; Breathings (2020). Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
| DONNA HARAWAY on Staying with the Trouble [ENCORE] /269 | 19 Jan 2022 | 01:20:05 | |
This week we are rebroadcasting our interview with Donna Haraway, originally aired in August of 2019. Since her 1985 essay, “A Cyborg Manifesto,” scholar Donna Haraway has transformed how theorists, academics, and artists think about humans’ deep and entangled relationships with technology, beyond-human kin, and each other. Through an ongoing practice of thoughtful and curious investigation, Donna continues to unravel the myth of human exceptionalism, the hyper individualism of capitalist culture and Western traditions, and the rigid binaries we so often construct between the self and others. Attending to the intersection of biology, culture and politics, Donna Haraway is a Distinguished Professor Emerita in the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California Santa Cruz. She earned her PhD in Biology at Yale in 1972 and writes and teaches in science and technology studies, feminist theory, and multispecies studies. Haraway’s most recent works include Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene; a feature-length film by Fabrizio Terravova, titled Donna Haraway: Story Telling for Earthly Survival; and Making Kin Not Population, a publication co-edited with Adele Clarke that addresses questions of human numbers, feminist anti-racist reproductive and environmental justice, and multispecies flourishing.Music by Jeremy Harris. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
| VIJAY PRASHAD on Capitalism’s Erosion of Morality [ENCORE] /268 | 12 Jan 2022 | 00:57:59 | |
This week we are rebroadcasting our interview with Vijay Prashad, originally aired in February of 2021. Emboldened by the rapid development of technology, a cultural ethos of rugged individualism, globalization, and the monopolization of our media, the era of efficiency in the so-called Global North has significantly altered our communal symbiosis. For many, acts of service that would have once been fulfilled by neighbors and community have now been replaced by apps and gig workers, ultimately commodifying most of our social relations in one form or another. This week on the podcast, we are joined by guest Vijay Prashad to explore how societies take care of themselves, what true public action looks like in crisis, and how movements across the world have resisted the privatization of life and the devaluation of care that we have become accustomed to. Vijay Prashad is the Director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, Chief Editor at LeftWord Books and Chief Correspondent for Globetrotter. His most recent book is Washington Bullets, just out from Monthly Review Press with a preface by Evo Morales Ayma. Music by Nathan Keck, Lizabett Russo, Sidi Touré, and Jon Yonts. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
| TRICIA HERSEY on Rest as Resistance [ENCORE] /267 | 05 Jan 2022 | 01:10:17 | |
This week we are rebroadcasting our interview with Tricia Hersey of the Nap Ministry, originally aired in June of 2020. With a historical analysis of slavery and plantation labor, this week’s episode prompts us, at this critical time, to consider what is stolen from those among us who cannot rest under white supremacy and capitalism. In this incredibly rich offering, we speak with Tricia on the myths of grind culture, rest as resistance, and reclaiming our imaginative power through sleep. Capitalism and white supremacy have tricked us into believing that our self-worth is tied to our productivity. Tricia shares with us the revolutionary power of rest. Tricia Hersey is a Chicago native living in Atlanta with over 20 years of experience collaborating with communities as a performance artist, theater maker, spiritual director, and community organizer. She is the founder of The Nap Ministry, an organization that examines rest as a form of resistance by curating safe spaces for the community to rest via Collective Napping Experiences, immersive workshops and performance art installations. Her research interests include black liberation theology, womanism, somatics, and cultural trauma. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Public Health from Eastern Illinois University and a Master of Divinity from the Candler School of Theology at Emory University.Music by Seba Kaapstad, Real J Wallace, and Beautiful Chorus. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
| CHIARA FRANCESCA on Embodied Care /266 | 29 Dec 2021 | 00:55:59 | |
In this week’s episode, we ground ourselves in our embodied reality with guest Chiara Francesca, who invites us to explore what it means to be aware of our bodies and the way that they feel in this world. With a deep commitment to future visioning, we unpack the significance of what it means to “heal” amidst a system that is so violently creating our perpetual states of illness. Moving beyond notions of healing as a singular, individual act, Chiara Francesca asks us to think about what it will take for care and community to thrive. In conversation, we explore the emotional experience behind acupuncture, how a disability justice framework shapes Chiara Francesca’s work, the connection between Earth and bodily experienced trauma, and how to create a conducive environment for embodiment. Chiara Francesca reminds us that “healing is a collective endeavor,” and if we truly want to co-create a healthy society, we must work to liberate one another from survival mode. Originally from Italy, and currently residing in Chicago, Chiara is a queer artist, writer, organizer, acupuncturist, immigrant, and former teen ma’ living with multiple disabilities. Their clinical focus is on mental health, trauma, CPTSD, and queer/trans health. She is committed to building collaborative spaces for community care and centering collective health in and out of movements for justice.Music by Cy X, Te Martin, and Secret Cigarette. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
| SHA’MIRA COVINGTON on Healing the Fashion Industrial Complex /265 | 22 Dec 2021 | 00:55:35 | |
In the world of fashion and design, it’s becoming increasingly common to hear about businesses that are sustainable in their use of material; using biofabricated textiles, measuring their water usage, etc. Or we see companies who have a strong ethos towards sustainable production and paying employees a “livable” wage, but rarely do we ever see both. For example, a recent report put out by Stand.Earth lauded Nike, Levis, and Puma for “shifting their supply chain away from fossil fuels,” however we know that these fashion companies are also responsible for exploiting workers across the globe through cheap labor. In this week’s episode, we explore the limitations of transformation when it comes to an inherently exploitative system, specifically looking at the ways in which brands use the term sustainable in very finite dimensions, with guest Sha’Mira Covington. Sha’Mira Covington is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Textiles, Merchandising and Interiors and the Institute of African American Studies at the University of Georgia. Her research explores fashion as a cultural, historical, social, and political phenomenon involved in and affected by histories of colonial domination, anti-colonial resistance, and processes of decolonization and globalization. Her dissertation, "The Revolution will be Embodied", uses archival sources to argue that despite the fashion industry's exploitation of Black activism, Black people have always used embodied practices such as dress, yoga, and dance to liberate themselves from hegemonic forces.Music by Itasca, Ley Line, and Rajna Swaminathan. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
| BATHSHEBA DEMUTH on a More-Than-Human History /264 | 15 Dec 2021 | 01:07:34 | |
How might a bowhead whale tell the history of the Arctic? Grounding us in a history of the Bering Strait that listens deeply to ecology and the more-than-human, Bathsheba Demuth invites us to expand our future and past visions of human society in this episode. Adding nuance to our understanding of Arctic history, Bathsheba turns our attention towards the undercurrents of resistance – from whales avoiding commercial whaling ships to whalers and miners confronting the violence of the jobs into which they were forced. Bathsheba then challenges us to move beyond the logic of the slaughterhouse, wherein we are alienated from the ways our energy and goods are produced, and to instead build towards a radically imagined future of empathetic and connected relations. With this, she considers a future outside of apocalyptic visions, rooted in the understanding that the shape of the world today is neither permanent nor pre-destined. Her writing on these subjects has appeared in publications from The American Historical Review to The New Yorker. Bathsheba Demuth is an Assistant Professor of History and Environment and Society at Brown University. An environmental historian, she writes and thinks with the lands and seas of the Russian and North American Arctic. Her interest in northern environments and cultures began when she was 18 and moved to the village of Old Crow in the Yukon. For over two years, she mushed huskies, hunted caribou, fished for salmon, and otherwise learned to survive in the taiga and tundra. Her prize-winning first book, Floating Coast: An Environmental History of the Bering Strait (W.W. Norton) was named a Nature Top Ten Book of 2019 and Best Book of 2019 by NPR, Barnes and Noble, Kirkus Reviews, and Library Journal among others. From the archive to the dog sled, she is interested in how the histories of people, ideas, places, and other-than-human species intersect. Music by Eliza Eden, Georgia Sackler, and Dana Anastasia. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
| MARCELLA KROLL on the Magic of Neurodiverse Futurisms /263 | 08 Dec 2021 | 00:57:56 | |
All too often that which exists beyond the realms of intellect and rationality are deemed unworthy, unreal, and even demonized by the overculture. However, there is tremendous power held by magical, intuitive practices, especially in this moment when so many of us are yearning to spin ourselves out of the reductionist, intellect-driven mindset that we find ourselves mired in. In this episode, we journey into the unseen with guest Marcella Kroll. In this expansive conversation we explore a variety of topics ranging from how we can offer tools for healing with integrity under a colonial-capitalist system, the intersections of algorithms, divination, and social media, and the legacy of ancestral healing. Marcella Kroll is a Neurodivergent Multi-Dimensional Artist, Performer, and Spiritualist. She is the creator of 3 divination decks, illustrator and author of the grimoire PRIESTESS, and host of the podcast Saved by the Spell. Through her one on one sessions, she offers her clients space and perspective to empower themselves on their own unique path. While offering classes and workshops that honor Ancestral Healing for those living in the Liminal spaces, empowered magical practices, and reclaiming your birthright as a Sovereign Being. She also is a program presenter for the Los Angeles Public Library offering divination workshops to Teens and Tweens.Music by Santiparro, Violet Bell, and Annie Sumi. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
| Dr. PATRICIA KAISHIAN on Queer Mycology /262 | 01 Dec 2021 | 01:09:19 | |
Dr. Patricia Kaishian encourages us to think of mycology as a revolutionary and political practice. Diving into queer mycology, we see the ways that fungi challenge binaries of gender, family structure, and even traditional biological classification. | |||
| ANTONIO LÓPEZ on the Colonization of Our Attention /261 | 24 Nov 2021 | 01:08:09 | |
Most of us are familiar with the environmental impacts of our physical technology, like the e-waste generated from cell phones or the minerals required to run our laptops, but have you ever wondered about the connections between digital media and resource extraction? This week we are joined by guest Antonio López to explore how ICT (Information and Communications Technology), and digital media and information, have not only transformed Earth but are also contributing to our collective carbon footprint. Dr. Antonio López is a leading international expert bridging ecojustice with media literacy. He is a founding theorist and architect of ecomedia literacy. He received professional training at the Center for Investigative Reporting in San Francisco, earned his BA in Peace and Conflict Studies at UC Berkeley and MA in Media Studies at the New School for Social Research. He earned a Ph.D. in Sustainability Education from Prescott College. He has written numerous academic articles, essays and four books: Mediacology: A Multicultural Approach to Media Literacy in the 21st Century, The Media Ecosystem: What Ecology Can Teach Us About Responsible Media Practice, Greening Media Education: Bridging Media Literacy with Green Cultural Citizenship, and Ecomedia Literacy: Integrating Ecology into Media Education. He is currently Chair and Associate Professor of Communications and Media Studies at John Cabot University in Rome, Italy.Music by Justin Crawmer, Sam Sycamore, and Marty O'Reilly and the Old Soul Orchestra. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
| NIRIA ALICIA on Pockets of Joy in the Resistance /260 | 17 Nov 2021 | 00:57:58 | |
Niria Alicia guides us to think about ancestral instruction, precious purpose, rituals for liberation, and what it means to be human in this time. | |||
| Othering and Belonging with Udi Raz, Yasmeen Daher, and Cecilie Surasky | 31 Jan 2024 | 00:59:13 | |
This week we are excited to continue our collaboration with UC Berkeley's Othering and Belonging Institute to bring you a conversation from The Othering and Belonging Conference in Berlin, Germany. This conversation is introduced by Monica Jiang, is moderated by Cecilie Surasky and features the voices of Udi Raz and Yasmeen Daher. Speaking on the theme “Turning Towards Each Other, Not Against Each Other: Bridging in Times of Crisis” the panelists address what it means to build towards co-liberation in difficult times – especially in the context of the war on Gaza. Since this conversation was recorded on November 14, 2023, the genocide in Gaza has continued and worsened, and the loss of so many lives is tragic and incomprehensible. The words offered here aim to make space to honor pain and simultaneously to explore generative forms of allyship in the face of such violence. Music by Amo Amo and Ariana Saraha. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
| Dr. RUPA MARYA and RAJ PATEL on Deep Medicine /259 | 10 Nov 2021 | 00:55:00 | |
Dr. Rupa Marya and Raj Patel discuss the biological impacts of oppressive social structures. We are left with the resounding reminder that inflammation is an indicator that we must change our collective ways in order to heal, and in today’s world that requires us to dismantle oppressive systems and expand our understanding of health beyond inadequate colonial definitions. | |||
| KERRY KNUDSEN on Lichen and Life after Capitalism [ENCORE] /258 | 03 Nov 2021 | 00:59:24 | |
Kerry spans the dreamiest of worlds, from the surreal and psychedelic presence of lichens to the magic of creating life post-capitalism. | |||
| CHRIS ZIMMER on a River Ethic /257 | 27 Oct 2021 | 01:04:17 | |
As the ocean warms and grows more hostile, the icy waters of the Taku river have served as refuge for salmon and an abundance of more-than-human kin. However, threats from mining and resource extraction are posed to forever change the habitat of the watershed. The 1957 abandonment of the Tulsequah Chief Mine in British Columbia left a disastrous environmental impact. This mine still requires billions of dollars worth of clean up action and constant monitoring to ensure the protection of this river system. The Tulsequah Chief serves as just one example of threats to the vital river systems of so-called Canada and The United States. The Taku, the Unuk, and the Stikine are all transboundary rivers beginning in British Columbia, Canada, and flowing through to Alaska. They are unique both in their beauty and abundance, and in the inter-governmental action required to regulate them. The Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909 dictates relations across international borders, but the treaty alone will not protect these rivers from acid mine drainage and continued extraction. Chris Zimmer invites us to imagine what clean, healthy rivers can bring us, and to propel love for these rivers towards ethical action. Chris Zimmer is the Alaska Campaign Director of Rivers Without Borders. Based in Juneau, Chris has been with Rivers Without Borders since 2001. Chris enjoys fishing and hunting in the watersheds he helps to protect. Music by Jon Yonts, GoldenOak, and Larkhall. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
| SAMUEL GENSAW III on the Restorative Revolution /256 | 20 Oct 2021 | 01:09:19 | |
The abundance of the Klamath River has been severely restricted since the late 1700s by way of mining, logging, and damming. Once home to the third-largest salmon run in the lower 48, now Northern California is risking the collapse of its entire salmon population. After two decades of activism, the Klamath River dams will finally be removed by 2023, restoring salmon access to more than 400 miles of habitat. However, this is merely one example of the ways in which land has been chronically mismanaged across the so-called United States. This week we speak to Yurok fisherman and activist, Samuel Gensaw III, on the ways in which Northern California has served as a continuous extraction site for colonial development. This expansive conversation begins by looking at resource extraction, but moves into a larger dialogue on our collective responsibility to world renewal, bringing back balance to our relationships, how to instill new values without appropriating cultural traditions, and the Ancestral Guard’s Victorious Gardens program featured in the film Gather. Samuel Gensaw III is the founding director of the Award-winning Ancestral Guard program. Currently, he is the youngest person to serve as the vice-chairman of the Yurok tribe’s natural resources committee. He and fellow Ancestral Guard members are featured in the documentary, Gather, which focuses on the growing movement among Native Americans to reclaim their spiritual, political, and cultural identities through food sovereignty. Music by Lake Mary, All The Queen’s Ravens, Jess Williamson. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
| DALLAS GOLDTOOTH on Responding to Toxic Masculinity [ENCORE] /255 | 13 Oct 2021 | 00:58:08 | |
This week we are rebroadcasting our interview with Dallas Goldtooth, originally aired in December of 2018. Dallas Goldtooth joins Ayana in a conversation around toxic masculinity, accountability, and dismantling patriarchy. So often, conversations around gender wounds quickly deteriorate into oversimplifications of, and accusations towards, one gender or another – failing to realize how we are all hurting under patriarchy. Toxic masculinity, settler colonialism, and white supremacy are impelling us to a point of no return. If you are coming to this conversation as an environmental advocate, understand that in order to shift our relationship from that of domination over “nature” to one of reciprocity and understanding of the ecosystem we are a part of, we must examine our values with one another. “Dallas Goldtooth is the Keep it in the Ground Campaign Organizer for the Indigenous Environmental Network. He is also the co-founder of the Indigenous comedy group The 1491s. Dallas is Dakota and Diné, a loving husband, dedicated father, comedian, public speaker, recovering exotic dancer, plastic shaman extraordinaire, and body double for that guy who plays Thor in them Thor Movies.”Music by Lyla June Johnston.Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
| JOSEFINA SKERK on Sámi Lifeways /254 | 06 Oct 2021 | 00:55:52 | |
When one thinks about iron, copper, and gold mining, Sweden is not the first place that comes to mind, but in the past few years the country has granted roughly 500 mining exploration permits as it positions itself to become one of the largest mining centers for all of Europe. The price of mining in Sweden has largely been paid by the Sámi, whose lifeways are permanently changed once the government and multinational corporations seek to extract so-called natural resources from their traditional territory of Sápmi. In this week’s episode, we look at extractive mining in Sápmi and how Sweden’s colonial government exploits their very limited definition of Sámi indigeneity to further land grabs and resource extraction with guest Josefina Skerk. Josefina Skerk is a Sámi politician with a background in law. She is the General Manager of Sijti Jarnge, a Sámi Language and Culture Centre in Norway. Skerk has been a member of the Sámi Parliament in Sweden since 2013, and has held office as its former Vice President. Indigenous rights, especially connecting to land and language rights, are key issues that she is passionate about. Music by Andy Tallent, Dana Anastasia, and West of Roan.Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
| VALARIE KAUR on the Ancient Call to Love /253 | 29 Sep 2021 | 00:59:49 | |
“What might happen if we saw a migrant child at the border as our own daughter? Or George Floyd gasping for breath as our own brother? Or Brianna as sister? Or the Asian American women slaughtered in Atlanta as our own aunties? What might happen? What would we risk? What movements would we build? What would we demand? How would we harness our rage? How would we reimagine a world in which all of us are safe? What might happen if we made love the ethic that guided all of our actions?” This week we ground down in visioning our shared survival with guest Valarie Kaur, who reminds us that for millennia prophetic voices have been trying to remind us that we belong to each other, here on Earth, and if we were to recognize this simple truth, what would the world look like? Valarie shares that in recognizing this reality of inherent belonging, we might have to “love beyond what evolution requires.” A revolutionary love for each other, our opponents, and ourselves. Valarie Kaur is a seasoned civil rights activist and celebrated prophetic voice. Valarie now leads the Revolutionary Love Project to reclaim love as a force for justice in America. As a lawyer, filmmaker, and innovator, she has won policy change on multiple fronts – hate crimes, racial profiling, immigration detention, solitary confinement, Internet freedom, and more. She founded Groundswell Movement, Faithful Internet, and the Yale Visual Law Project. A daughter of Sikh farmers in California's heartland, Valarie earned degrees at Stanford University, Harvard Divinity School, and Yale Law School. Valarie's new book is See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love. Music by AMAARA and Madeleine Sophia.Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
| RUTH ŁCHAV'AYA K'ISEN MILLER on Relations of Reciprocity /252 | 27 Sep 2021 | 01:07:19 | |
In this magnetic conversation, Ruth and Ayana consider where a politics of love can breathe, radical softness, mindsets of abundance, climate justice advocacy, and the steps we can take to create systems of wellness. In recognition of what might feel like a painful transition for many, Ruth guides us to think about what practices and acts of care we can implement with each other as a way of willing a more beautiful world back into existence. | |||
| WOMAN STANDS SHINING (Pat McCabe) on Humanity's Homecoming /251 | 17 Sep 2021 | 01:22:31 | |
In the fast-paced movement of today’s media, it’s easy to become entangled in narratives of extinction, loss, a lack of time, and a tremendous amount of misanthropy. However, when we pause to look within the ecosystems around us we can find examples of life pushing through the most difficult of circumstances. Our more than human kin continues in defiance, refusing to cease their own lineage under the current modern paradigm of exploitation and desecration. In this week’s episode, we look into a thriving life paradigm, which places a reverences for life at the center of all action, with guest Woman Stands Shining (Pat McCabe). In this expansive conversation, Woman Stands Shining coalesces topics of Indigenous sovereignty, land back, how gender and consent behave in different paradigms, and the vital importance of moving out of modernity’s obsession with intellectualism as the primary way of knowing, into a powerful call to choose a timeless paradigm that is life-affirming for us all. Woman Stands Shining (Pat McCabe) is a Diné grandmother, activist, artist, and international speaker. Her primary work is proposing to the Five-Fingered-Ones, that paradigm is a choice, and pointing to Indigenous cultures as examples that we have evidence that human beings can participate in paradigms in which we can become beings capable of causing all life to thrive. Music by The Range of Light Wilderness, Violet Bell, and Sea Stars. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
| THEA RIOFRANCOS on Planetary Perspectives of Green Energy /250 | 08 Sep 2021 | 01:06:25 | |
When we hear about the Green New Deal, it is almost always in context to policy and business within the United States. The urgent push for an energy transition away from fossil fuels often obscures the reality of extractive frontiers and the supply chains that green energy necessitates. This week, we slow down and explore the structures behind “our” energy systems, what a Green New Deal means for “resource-rich” countries in the Global South, and what a globally accountable Green New Deal could look like with guest Thea Riofrancos. As we explore what a renewable energy transition looks like from the so-called peripheries of extraction, Thea guides us to think about the relationship between solidarity and consumption, collectivity, and the vital importance of pushing for policy, systems, and organizations that empower public services, forms of sharing, and economies of care. Thea Riofrancos is an assistant professor of political science at Providence College, an Andrew Carnegie Fellow, and a Radcliffe Institute Fellow. Her research focuses on resource extraction, renewable energy, climate change, green technology, social movements, and the left in Latin America. These themes are explored in her book, Resource Radicals: From Petro-Nationalism to Post-Extractivism in Ecuador and her co-authored book, A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal.Music by 40 Million Feet, Mitski, and Alexa Wildish. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
| SYLVIA V. LINSTEADT on The Motherline /363 | 24 Jan 2024 | 00:56:36 | |
Tracing ancestry through the motherline, this week’s guest Sylvia V. Linsteadt introduces listeners to the world of matrilineal myth and wisdom. For Sylvia, story and myth are very much alive and can offer valuable insight especially as we consider what it means to inhabit a place. From stories of female monks, to the practical wisdom of weaving, to the veneration of The Virgin Mary, Sylvia reminds us of what it means to value the feminine. Throughout the episode, Sylvia and Ayana consider questions at the very foundation of our cultures. Winding through questions of patriarchy, religion, and violence, Ayana and Sylvia do not find singular answers, but rather a wisdom that arises from questioning the things that are deeply enmeshed in our culture. As we reckon with a violent and troubling world, how can we turn to stories that guide us to liberation? Sylvia Linsteadt is a writer and certified wildlife tracker from northern California, ancestral Coast Miwok territory. She currently lives in Devon, England. Her work—both fiction and non-fiction—is rooted in myth, ecology, ancient history, feminism & bioregionalism, and is devoted to broadening our human stories to include the voices of the living land. She is the author of the collections The Venus Year and Our Lady of the Dark Country, two novels for young readers, The Wild Folk and The Wild Folk Rising, and the post-apocalyptic folktale cycle Tatterdemalion with painter Rima Staines. Her nonfiction books include The Wonderments of the East Bay, and Lost Worlds of the San Francisco Bay Area, which won the 2018 Northern California Book Award for best general nonfiction. She is currently finishing a novel set in Bronze Age Crete, where she has lived and researched extensively. Sylvia also teaches occasional myth-oriented creative writing workshops, and shares her work out loud on her podcast Kalliope's Sanctum. Music by The New Runes. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
| LIL MILAGRO HENRIQUEZ-CORNEJO on Climate Resilience Rooted in Ancestry /249 | 01 Sep 2021 | 01:01:37 | |
In order to limit global temperature from exceeding a 1.5°C increase, we need to cut global emissions by 45% in the next 10 years. However, recent reports indicate that if our current global pledges were enacted, we’d only reduce our emissions by 1%. We are living through what some might define as an ongoing climate emergency, and this will only continue for future generations. Instead of fixating on how to “stop” climate change-related disasters or putting our trust in ineffective government bodies or greedy purveyors of “green” technology to “save” us, this week, we think about how we can have community resilience, ingenuity, and wellbeing amidst unpredictable circumstances with guest Lil Milagro Henriquez-Cornejo of Mycelium Youth Network. For Mycelium Youth Network, the capacity for community resilience is inextricable from reconnecting with ancestral knowledge and reestablishing our relationships with one another and Earth. Lil Milagro Henriquez-Cornejo is the founder and Executive Director of Mycelium Youth Network, an organization dedicated to preparing and empowering young people of color for climate change. Lil Milagro is a veteran of social justice organizing with over 18+ years of experience working on a myriad of issues, including access to higher education for low-income people and communities of color, food sovereignty, environmental racism, union democracy, and labor organizing, among others. In 2017, she founded Mycelium Youth Network. Music by Harry Foster, Lea Thomas, and Ian George. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
| QUEEN QUET on the Survival of Sea Island Wisdom [ENCORE] /248 | 25 Aug 2021 | 00:59:10 | |
This week we are rebroadcasting our interview with Queen Quet, originally aired in November of 2018. The Anthropocene tells the story of compounding injustice towards people and planet. It tells the story of growth for growth’s sake, living beyond boundaries sacredly assigned to us. In this episode, we are honored to be in dialogue with Queen Quet, Chieftess and Head-of-State for the Gullah/Geechee Nation, who is striving for justice on the front lines of the most pressing Anthropocentric intersections: climate change, resource extraction, corrupt and negligent government bodies, encroaching development, and exploitative tourism. Queen Quet, Marquetta L. Good-wine is a published author, computer scientist, lecturer, mathematician, historian, columnist, preservationist, environmental justice advocate, film consultant, and “The Art-ivist.” Queen Quet was selected, elected, and enstooled by her people to be the first Queen Mother, “head pun de bodee,” and official spokesperson for the Gullah/Geechee Nation. She is the founder of the premiere advocacy organization for the continuation of Gullah/Geechee culture, the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition. Music by The Gullah Singers - Live recordings from Gullah/Geechee TV Nayshun Nyews with Queen Quet and The Gullah/Geechee Nation International Music & Movement Festival. Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
| ANDREA BALLESTERO on a Future History of Water /247 | 18 Aug 2021 | 01:04:13 | |
The ubiquity of water is demonstrated in almost everything we come into contact with. It’s responsible for everyday objects like blue jeans, bread, and coffee, it rushes through pipes below our feet, is necessary for industrial violence like fracking, mapped through watersheds, exists as a healing modality, and is also a great source of pleasure - yet most of us take water for granted as a mundane necessity, rarely stopping to look at how tightly water is woven into politics, science, and the economy. This week on the podcast we look at the power and ubiquity of water in a world where it is becoming scarce with guest Andrea Ballestero. Andrea explores the tensions that exist between a human right and a commodity, water futures, pricing mechanisms, the fallacy of rationing and block pricing, and water scarcity. Andrea Ballestero is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Rice University and she is also the founder and director of the Ethnography Studio. Her background includes a law degree, training in Natural Resource Policy, and a Ph.D. in anthropology. Her recent book, A Future History of Water, examines the daily work of implementing the human right to water in Costa Rica and in Northeast Brazil. This book is open access and available for download for free on her website. Dr. Ballestero is currently researching cultural imaginaries of the underground in Costa Rica, particularly aquifers. Her research and all of her publications can be found at https://andreaballestero.com/.Music by The Pit-Yak Aiodoi, Palo-Mah (Suculima), and Jahnavi Veronica.Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points. | |||
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