The Native Seed Pod – Details, episodes & analysis

This sixth episode of Season Four with Frank K. Lake and Lydia Jennings centers around Indigenous ecologies and their practical application. Frank Lake discusses the complex relationship between science, research, and resource management, and the policy changes needed to apply TEK in ethical ways. Lydia Jennings dives deeper into the need to decolonize ecology and apply Indigenous rights and ethics for data access and governance.

We are honored to host this special podcast season that invites dialogue from many perspectives— elders, cultural practitioners, and Indigenous scholars—so we might better understand each other and explore opportunities to weave these learnings together. This podcast is a production of The Cultural Conservancy’s Native Seed Pod.

In the fourth episode of our limited series Knowledge Symbiosis: Can Biomimicry and Indigenous Science Harmonize?, Roxanne Swentzell and Anne LaForti engage in a conversation hosted by Sara El-Sayed, converging Indigenous ideologies and scientific understanding of soils, seeds, regenerative versus sustainable terminologies, and steps to healing ourselves and our ecosystems.

This limited series, Knowledge Symbiosis: Can Biomimicry and Indigenous Science Harmonize?, is produced by The Cultural Conservancy’s Native Seed Pod in collaboration with Arizona State University and Learning From Nature: The Biomimicry Podcast. We invite dialogue from multiple perspectives—practitioners in biomimicry, and elders, practitioners, and Indigenous scholars—so we might better understand each other and explore opportunities to weave these learnings. These conversations delve into the ethics of science, human-nature connection, regenerative design, and our relationship to all other kin on this planet. Five episodes will be available on The Native Seed Pod and Learning From Nature: The Biomimicry Podcast for listeners to tune in and reflect. The episodes are hosted in rotation by Dr. Melissa K Nelson, Dr. Sara El-Sayed, and Lily Urmann, and feature conversations between Indigenous scholars and practitioners: Kim Tall Bear, PennElys Droz, Melissa Nelson, and Roxanne Swentzell; and Biomimicry scientists and practitioners: Janine Benyus, Dayna Baumeister, Maibritt Pedersen, and Anne LaForti.

In this episode, Shelley Buffalo talks with host Melissa Nelson about the healing power of ancestral foods, feeding the community with rematriated crops and medicines, and her work with Meskwaki Food Sovereignty Initiative, Red Earth Gardens and Seed Savers Exchange. They also explore the power of art and the beauty of seeds.

This is the second of three episodes focused on Seed Rematriation, and is a co-production of The Cultural Conservancy and Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance’s (NAFSA) Indigenous Seed Keepers Network (ISKN). These episodes are part of a collection of Seed Rematriation media that we have co-produced with NAFSA and Rowen White.

Host Melissa Nelson talks with Jessika Greendeer of the Ho-Chunk Nation in this first of three episodes focused on Seed Rematriation. Jessika and Melissa discuss this important growing movement, seed keeping and agriculture, and her work as Seed Keeper and Farm Manager at Dream of Wild Health. This episode is a co-production of The Cultural Conservancy and Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance’s (NAFSA) Indigenous Seed Keepers Network, part of a collection of Seed Rematriation media that we have co-produced with NAFSA.

Host Melissa Nelson sits down with famous Acoma Pueblo writer, poet, and storyteller Simon J. Ortiz to discuss the intricacies of traditional tribal identities, the wonder of our traditional foods, and our role as Indigenous peoples in the future of ‘green’ urban development on our traditional territories. Simon’s gentle ease and wise words amplify simple truths and ground large heady concepts, leaving us open to receive the immensity of his final gift a sharing of his poem, Deer Dinner.

Renee shares her experience of being changed while writing her book Kanaka Hawaiʻi Cartography: Hula, Navigation, and Oratory (2017),  which explores Kanaka Hawai’i place-name and spatial knowledge systems. We are met with the breadth of Hawaiian, place-based language and knowledge of ‘Aina – the land-food matrix. Deep in intimate conversation, together we traverse stars and seasons, plants and mountains, and how to embody food sovereignty, self-determination, and nourishing relationships of food and community.

On a sunny fall afternoon in the shadow of Mount Tamalpias, Seed Pod host Melissa Nelson and producer Sara Moncada sat down with Wikuki and Tania for a cup of tea to talk stories of land and foods across the Pacific. From the masterful Indigenous sciences of land and ocean, food and water (known to Maori peoples as kai wai), to the many foods of Aotearoa we explore the deep knowledge and nourishing relationships held across moana nui.

Redbird teaches how Native Californians co-created the landscape using "mild disturbance," fire, seeding, and seasonal harvesting rotations to increase diversity and cultivate an ecosystem so vibrant and abundant that it was able to support huge populations of people and animals previously thought impossible without conventional agriculture.

After a full day of harvesting, teachings, and community during The Cultural Conservancy’s annual Harvest Day gathering, Melissa Nelson catches up with knowledge keeper Redbird (Edward Willie) on the beautiful back acres of our partner, Indian Valley Organic Farm & Garden in Novato, California.