Emergence Magazine Podcast
<P>Emergence Magazine is an online publication with annual print edition exploring the threads connecting ecology, culture, and spirituality. As we experience the desecration of our lands and waters, the extinguishing of species, and a loss of sacred connection to the Earth, we look to emerging stories. Our podcast features exclusive interviews, narrated essays, stories and more.
During this pandemic, we are publishing new content that explores the deeper themes and questions emerging at this time. These stories reveal new opportunities to deeply connect with each other and the living world—in the midst of this crisis and beyond.
www.emergencemagazine.org</P>
1
My Mother’s Hands – Gina Rae La Cerva
As she collects wild foods during the pandemic, Gina Rae La Cerva considers the widespread loss of traditional feminine knowledge and how an ancient understanding of wild medicine could serve today’s fragmented world.
14 min
2
Desire Paths – David Farrier
As the coronavirus sets us on an uncertain and increasingly narrow path, David Farrier finds inspiration in the meandering imprints left by the tracks of animals.
18 min
3
Language Keepers, Episode 6: The Power of Revit...
Hear from speakers of endangered languages who are increasingly resisting predictions of extinction.
34 min
4
Language Keepers, Episode 5: Kawaiisu
For nearly two decades, Julie Girado Turner has been documenting and recording her father and aunt, the last remaining fluent speakers of the Kawaiisu language.
28 min
5
Language Keepers, Episode 4: Wukchumni
Episode Four brings us to the home of Marie Wilcox—the last fluent speaker of the Wukchumni language and the creator of the only Wukchumni dictionary.
26 min
6
Language Keepers, Episode 3: Karuk
Along the Klamath River, a small group of dedicated speakers are working to fill generational gaps in the transmission of the Karuk language.
33 min
7
Language Keepers, Episode 2: Tolowa Dee-ni’
In this episode we meet the sole remaining fluent speaker of the Tolowa Dee-ni’ language and his family who are grappling with what is at stake if they lose their language.
57 min
8
Language Keepers, Episode 1: Colonizing California
The Tolowa Dee-ni’, Karuk, Wukchumni, and Kawaiisu Indigenous communities of California share the colonizing histories that attempted to erase their cultures and the importance of keeping their languages alive.
59 min
9
The Creatures of the World Have Not Been Chaste...
As she bears witness to the decomposing body of a deer, Lia Purpura considers the forces of restoration at play: the processes which transform bodies from one state to another and the beginnings that emerge from endings.
17 min
10
Negative Love — Daisy Hildyard
Daisy Hildyard examines how the COVID-19 pandemic has drawn our attention to the space between things and how these “negative spaces” reveal points of connection.
31 min
11
And Peace Shall Return — Ben Okri
Twenty thousand years into the future, an exploration of the Earth uncovers the final notes and unfinished stories left behind by the last sentient human beings in the twilight of their history.
58 min
12
The Basilisk — Paul Kingsnorth
In an exchange of letters between an uncle and a niece—a demonologist and a mother—two members of a family respond to our addiction to technology as they divulge their thoughts about the otherworld, possession, and fatal temptation.
42 min
13
The Ecology of Perception – David Abram
David Abram discusses our current moment of ecological and societal instability and calls on us to remember the animacy of our bodily senses and our participation in the collective, embodied flesh of the Earth.
49 min
14
Ink — Sjón
Born with the gift of second sight, Valur Sveinsson encounters supernatural beings called the Inkborn and witnesses their telling of an apocalyptic vision of the future.
39 min
15
Thylacine — Lydia Millet
In this short story, Lydia Millet explores the loss of extinction as a man seeks the company and friendship of the last Tasmanian tiger, housed in a failing zoo.
24 min
16
The Lord God Bird: Apocalyptic Prophecy & the V...
As the existence of the famed ivory-billed woodpecker is increasingly left to the realm of myth, Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder explores the widespread disappearance of birds in the narratives of apocalyptic prophecy that run through our collective consciousness.
63 min
17
Sweet Breath from Another – Crystal Wilkinson
Crystal Wilkinson offers this contemplation on the intimacy of breathing and breath as she considers how we live, die, and love.
24 min
18
Courting the Wild Twin – Martin Shaw
Mythologist and storyteller Martin Shaw on initiation, agency, and the move into the mythical.
55 min
19
The Other House: Musings on the Diné Perspectiv...
Poet Jake Skeets explores apocalypse, time, and futurity from a Diné perspective.
26 min
20
Beginning with the End – Roy Scranton
Roy Scranton on what we mean when we say "the world is ending."
44 min
21
And God Laughs – Amaud Jamaul Johnson
Amaud Jamaul Johnson explores the loneliness and fear that arise in the wake of inexplicable tragedy where personal losses highlight histories of suffering and the deep uncertainties of our time.
26 min
22
Pickled Limes – Kalyanee Mam
As Kalyanee Mam cooks for her family members who have fallen ill during the pandemic, she reflects on food as a conduit for healing.
30 min
23
Life in the Time of Cholera: Lessons on a Pande...
George Prochnik reminds us of Heinrich Heine’s account of Paris’s 1832 cholera pandemic and asks: What is necessary passion and courage?
56 min
24
Sanctuaries of Silence
Join acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton on an immersive listening journey to the Hoh Rainforest in Olympic National Park.
14 min
25
Robin Wall Kimmerer in Conversation with Robert...
Responding to questions asked by readers from around the globe, Robin Wall Kimmerer and Robert Macfarlane discuss dandelions as global citizens, the role of the writer as a conduit for story, and the spirit of reciprocity that lies at the heart of our relationship to place.
62 min
26
This Is Not a Rehearsal – Hala Alyan
Self-quarantined and isolated in her apartment in Brooklyn, Hala Alyan asks how we can make room for grief, empathy, and hope as we move through this pandemic together.
20 min
27
I Am Not Your Peril – Lisa Lee Herrick
In the wake of COVID-19, Lisa Lee Herrick challenges the resurgence of dangerous historical frames of race and belonging.
42 min
28
In the Ground of Our Unknowing – David Abram
During this time of uncertainty and isolation, David Abram prompts us to turn to the more-than-human planet to empower our empathy for each other.
27 min
29
What Difference Does a Day Make? Earth Day at F...
For the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, Paul Elie traces the literary history of the environmental movement—from Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring to Pope Francis’s encyclical on the environment—and asks: what difference does a day make?
56 min
30
Among the Trees – Carl Phillips
In this extended meditation on the relationship between place and intimacy, the body and the word, Carl Phillips walks among trees to explore what can and cannot be known.
20 min
31
The Poet and the Palm Tree – Chelsea Steinauer-...
The poet W.S. Merwin spent the last four decades of his life in Maui, restoring an abandoned plot of land. His poems are living witness to the care he offered to this land.
35 min
32
Shaking the Viral Tree – a conversation with Da...
Science writer David Quammen speaks about the root causes underlying the current pandemic and explores the ways in which viruses are embedded in the same systems of ecology and evolutionary biology that we are.
38 min
33
Woods Work – William Bryant Logan
After visiting a two-thousand-year-old Linden tree in England, William Bryant Logan explores the nearly forgotten practice of coppicing.
38 min
34
One Hundred and Eleven Trees – Chelsea Steinaue...
When a marble mine began to strip a village of its forests, the people of Piplantri, India, developed a tree-planting project that reclaims a vital and ancient relationship between trees and women.
59 min
35
On Survival: the Dead, the Sapling, and the Anc...
Ecologist Lauren Oakes looks beyond the scientific lens of subject-object while studying the effects of climate change on yellow-cedars in the Alaskan archipelago
35 min
36
The Church Forests of Ethiopia – Fred Bahnson
Fred Bahnson encounters the old traditions that preserve the small pockets of old-growth forest that still surround Ethiopia’s churches.
72 min
37
Dead Wood – Nick Hunt
Nick Hunt visits Białowieża, Europe’s largest surviving primeval forest where life and death transform into one another with vigorous entanglement.
30 min
38
Felling Light – Amaud Jamaul Johnson
In this essay, Amaud Jamaul Johnson returns to his poem “The Maple Remains” for the centennial anniversary of the Red Summer of 1919.
32 min
39
Eleven Ways of Smelling a Tree – David G. Haskell
David Haskell invites us into the unique, and sometimes surprising, aromas of eleven different species of trees.
60 min
40
Kinship, Community, and Consciousness – a conve...
In this extensive interview, Richard Powers discusses his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Overstory and his intention to tell a story in which humans are not separate from the living world around them.
64 min
41
On Time and Water – a conversation with Andri S...
In this interview, Icelandic writer and documentary filmmaker Andri Snær Magnason discusses our relationship to time in an age of ecological crisis.
59 min
42
A Radical Reimagining of the Novel with Richard...
In this vibrant conversation, poet and author Forrest Gander interviews Richard Powers about his acclaimed new novel The Overstory.
54 min
43
Reseeding the Food System – Rowen White
In this in-depth interview, Rowen White discusses how seeds—her greatest teachers—hold the link between cultural revitalization and the restoration of traditional foodways.
48 min
44
The Pull of the Sky — Jeffrey Jerome Cohen
For thousands of years, humans have imagined what it would mean to view the Earth from celestial heights. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen questions how we might reconcile our bounded lives with our longing for the cosmos.
19 min
45
Tending Soil — Emma Marris
Emma Marris explores the deep and fertile history of our ancient relationship with soil.
34 min
46
The Seeds of Ancestors: A Day at Soul Fire Farm...
This profile of Black Kreyol farmer Leah Penniman explores her work to create spaces for people of color to heal and reconnect to the land—an effort to end America’s food apartheid system.
35 min
47
Praise Song for the Kitchen Ghosts — Crystal Wi...
Raised on her grandmother’s jam cake, biscuits, and sweet black tea, Crystal Wilkinson evokes a legacy of joy, love, and plenty in the culinary traditions of Black Appalachia.
32 min
48
Dwelling on Earth — Jay Griffiths
Marveling at worms, fungi, and the pioneering water bear, Jay Griffiths invites us to remember that soil is what turns the Earth’s barren rock into the riotous life we know.
36 min
49
We Learned to Fear Tiger and to Love Squirrel –...
Lisa Lee Herrick recalls her grandfather—a master squirrel hunter—bringing home a squirrel for spicy hunter’s stew, and how this dish helped unravel a hidden past.
44 min
50
Fermenting Culture – David Zilber
Chef David Zilber, director of the fermentation lab at Noma, discusses how food is culture, but fermentation is culture on a deeper level.
46 min
51
Speaking the Anthropocene – Robert Macfarlane
In this in-depth interview, writer Robert Macfarlane takes listeners on a journey through language and landscape, exploring how a precision of utterance and a grammar of reciprocity can summon wonder in our encounters with place. Robert is the author...
76 min
52
The Language of the Master – Paul Kingsnorth
Paul Kingsnorth faces his suspicion that modern written language is in fact a tool of ecocide. Paul is the author of the novels “The Wake” and “Beast,” the essay collection “Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist,” and the poetry...
27 min
53
Atlas with Shifting Edges – Elizabeth Rush
Elizabeth Rush reflects on climate change as a transformational force on our landscapes and the words we might use to grasp this shifting reality. Her book “Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore” was recently nominated for a Pulitzer...
23 min
54
The Voices of Birds and the Language of Belongi...
David Haskell enters the intricate and generative soundscape of the world of birds, inviting us to join in a practice of cross-species listening as a bridge to kinship. David is the author of “The Songs of Trees: Stories from Nature’s Great...
24 min
55
On the Language of the Deep Blue – Charles Foster
In an effort to seek out a language beyond the human, Charles Foster travels to the Isle of Skye to listen to the intricate vocalizations of the eight remaining Scottish killer whales. Charles is the author of more than twenty books, including...
26 min
56
Losing Language – Camille T. Dungy
Rejecting the refrain “there are no words,” author and poet Camille T. Dungy reaches for a language that can encompass the experience of loneliness, erasure, and loss. Camille is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently “Trophic...
30 min
57
A Forest Walk – Practice Guided by Kimberly Ruffin
Kimberly Ruffin is a Certified Nature and Forest Therapy Guide and author of Black on Earth: African American Ecoliterary Traditions. As a companion to Kimberly’s essay “Bodies of Evidence” from our Faith issue, she created a guided practice...
46 min
58
Ancient Root – Linda Hogan
For Chickasaw novelist and poet, Linda Hogan, hope lives where faith has fallen away. During an encounter with caged elephants, she experiences a wave of profound and startling love in the presence of beings so very different from—and so very...
40 min
59
Wave Patterns – Aylie Baker
In this narrated essay, Aylie Baker reflects on her experiences sailing by canoe under Micronesian Master Navigator Sesario Sewralur and shows how we can draw on an innate ability to orient ourselves in a shifting world. Born in Maine, Aylie is...
34 min
60
Radical Dharma – angel Kyodo williams
In this in-depth interview, Reverend angel Kyodo williams reflects on our widespread crisis of story, the failure of institutional religions to offer a new way forward, and her philosophy of Radical Dharma—a path to individual and collective...
38 min
61
The Religious Value of the Unknown – George Pro...
In an age when the fate of the world is frightfully unknown, George Prochnik, author of “In Pursuit of Silence: Listening for Meaning in a World of Noise,” makes a case for uncertainty as a form of faith and hope. If we unravel our desire for the...
46 min
62
Bodies of Evidence – Kimberly Ruffin
As Kimberly Ruffin revisits her upbringing and spiritual heritage, she compiles the bodies of evidence that have invigorated her spirit. A certified Nature and Forest Therapy Guide and a new member of a church, Kimberly explores where “spirit...
15 min
63
Lone Moon Lights Cold Spring – Bill Porter (Red...
In this in-depth interview, Bill Porter, famously known as the translator Red Pine, reflects on his encounters with Chinese hermits and his long history with the great Taoist and Buddhist poets of China.
39 min
64
A Letter to my Husband – Hala Alyan
Struggling to explain her belief in God to her atheist husband, award-winning Palestinian American poet Hala Alyan reflects on her Muslim faith as inextricably linked to her family, to Palestine, and to histories of erasure.
20 min
65
Imagining Burial – Lia Purpura
In this narrated essay, writer and poet Lia Purpura delves into the horrified wonder and holiness of death, exploring burial practices that are intended to nourish the earth, as it has nourished us.
30 min
66
Ecological Conversion – Paul Elie
Struck by the thought that the Catholic Church and the natural world have traded places as sources of transcendence, Paul Elie wonders how religion and the natural world might come together for shared renewal. Paul is the author of the award-winning...
25 min
67
Hallowed Ground – Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder
The roots of religious belief and the sacredness of nature were once closely entwined: the ancient yew grows in the churchyard; the forest monks of Thailand follow the Buddha’s example of meditating beneath trees. Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder profiles...
32 min
68
Myrtle's Medicine – Kinitra Brooks
In a world where the cosmologies of black women are continually erased and excluded from knowledge traditions, Kinitra Brooks seeks connection with her late great-grandmother, Mama Myrt, who first introduced her to rootworking traditions and inspired...
24 min
69
On the Road with Thomas Merton – Fred Bahnson
In the summer of 1968, Christian mystic Thomas Merton undertook a pilgrimage to the American West. Fifty years later, writer Fred Bahnson set out to follow Merton’s path, retracing the monk’s journey across the landscape. This narrated essay...
66 min
70
Myth of Progress — An Interview with Paul Kings...
In this interview, writer Paul Kingsnorth discusses some of the central themes explored in his work. The conversation centers on the "myth of progress," the failure of technology to deliver the "good life," and how both have led us into the...
27 min
71
Corn Tastes Better on the Honor System – Robin ...
Robin Wall Kimmerer is a writer, scientist, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is author of the acclaimed book "Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teaching of Plants." In this essay, Robin...
56 min
72
Born was the Mountain – Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder
In this in-depth investigative story, Emergence Magazine staff writer Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder explores the collision of values unfolding on the summit of Mauna Kea, the proposed site for what would be the largest telescope in the world.
77 min
73
Magic and the Machine — David Abram
David Abram is a cultural ecologist and philosopher. In this essay, he reflects on our undying urge to recreate a primal experience of intimacy with the surrounding world, offering notes on technology and animism in an age of ecological wipeout.
50 min
74
The Great Work: Alchemy and the Power of Words ...
Paul Kingsnorth is a writer living in rural Ireland. Recalling a visit from a dark figure in a dream, who reappeared in his novel "The Wake," Paul reflects on writing as an alchemical process, one involving transformation, discipline, and purification.
21 min
75
When You Meet the Monster, Anoint His Feet – Ba...
Bayo Akomolafe is a writer and lecturer from western Nigeria. In the age of the Anthropocene and entrenched politics of whiteness, this essay brings us face-to-face with our own unresolved ancestry, as it becomes more and more apparent that we are...
57 min
76
Winds of Awe and Fear — Nick Hunt
Nick Hunt is a writer, journalist, storyteller, and self-described wind-walker. His latest book, "Where the Wild Winds Are," tells the story of four European winds and their effects on the landscape, people, and culture. In this essay Nick continues...
27 min
77
Mud and Antler Bone — Martin Shaw
Dr. Martin Shaw is a writer, teacher, and mythologist. His books include: "A Branch from the Lightning Tree," "Snowy Tower," and "Scatterlings." He is the founder of the Westcountry School of Myth, a learning community located on...
50 min
78
Wildwood — Kara Moses
Kara Moses is a writer and educator. Her work focuses on land management, social change, and nature connection. She has written for the Guardian, the Ecologist, and BBC Wildlife. In this essay Kara visits a primordial, old-growth forest in...
32 min
79
On Being Alone — Craig Childs
Craig Childs writes about adventure, wilderness, and science. His books include "Atlas of a Lost World," "Apocalyptic Planet," "Finders Keepers," and "The Animal Dialogues." In this essay Craig takes a solo canoe trip down the Green River,...
25 min
80
From Dirt — Camille T. Dungy
Camille T. Dungy is an award-winning author, poet, editor, and professor. Her work includes the collection of essays "Guidebook to Relative Strangers" and the poetry collections "Trophic Cascade," "Suck on the Marrow," and "What to Eat, What to...
16 min
81
Creaturely Migrations on a Breathing Planet — D...
In this narrated essay, cultural ecologist and philosopher David Abram questions the deep intelligence that lies at the heart of crane, butterfly, and salmon migration patterns.
51 min
82
A Storm Blown from Paradise — Paul Kingsnorth
Beginning with W. B. Yeats's iconic poem, "The Second Coming," acclaimed writer Paul Kingsnorth narrates his essay "A Storm Blown from Paradise," an inquiry into linear and cyclical time and the sweeping momentum of progress.
28 min
83
Wild Fire, Flat Water — Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder
In this episode, Emergence Magazine staff writer Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder travels to the Great Plains of Nebraska and South Dakota, to speak with people who are restoring the native prairie and learning what it means to listen to the land. From an...
60 min
84
Widening Circles — Joanna Macy
In this interview, Buddhist eco-philosopher Joanna Macy discusses her personal journey into the worlds of anti-nuclear activism, Buddhism, and deep ecology. Sign up for our newsletter to receive more stories from Emergence Magazine:...
33 min