Emergence Magazine Podcast
Emergence Magazine is an award winning magazine exploring the threads connecting ecology, culture and spirituality. Our podcast features exclusive interviews, author-narrated essays, contributor conversations, fiction, multipart series, and more. We feature new podcast episodes weekly on Tuesdays.
It has always been a radical act to share stories during dark times. They are regenerative spaces of creation and renewal. 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. In them we find the timeless connections between ecology, culture, and spirituality.
1
The Nightingale's Song – a conversation with Sa...
Singer Sam Lee speaks about the transformative experience of creating songs in collaboration with nightingales and the space for communion that is opened with silence.
52 min
2
Ancient Green: Moss, Climate, and Deep Time – R...
Taking a long view of life on Earth, Robin Wall Kimmerer explores how mosses—ancient beings who transformed the world—teach us strategies for persisting amid a changing climate.
36 min
3
Finding the Mother Tree – a conversation with S...
64 min
4
Watering the Dead and the Unseen – Sumana Roy
At her home in Siliguri, India, Sumana Roy and her nephew reflect on the continuance of all that has vanished from our sight.
29 min
5
Saguaro, Free of the Earth – Boyce Upholt
In this essay from Boyce Upholt, a coalition of Indigenous voices speak on behalf of the rooted beings of the desert as legal protections for the saguaro cactus come up against the push to build a border wall.
39 min
6
The Eternal Tree – Jori Lewis
Jori Lewis is drawn to the wisdom and resiliency of Africa’s baobab trees—ancient arks of biodiversity that have endured for millennia—and bears witness to these elders in a rapidly changing world.
38 min
7
False Passives – Anna Badkhen
Anna Badkhen considers failed migrations and the impossibility of escape as the forces of climate catastrophe and colonial greed combine to trap the world's most vulnerable populations.
30 min
8
On Death and Love – Melanie Challenger
As Melanie Challenger examines the belief in human exceptionalism that has devastated life on this planet, she wonders if our desire to outrun death is hindering our capacity to love.
26 min
9
Birder to Birder – J. Drew Lanham
Through an imagined exchange of letters between two pillars of conservation, J. Drew Lanham asks: In the ongoing response to racism, how might reckoning with history help us weave better futures?
30 min
10
When the Earth Started to Sing – David G. Haskell
This sonic journey narrated by David G. Haskell brings us to the beginning of sound and song on planet Earth.
41 min
11
Becoming Water: Black Memory in Slavery’s After...
Navigating Black lineages of thinking and practice, Makshya Tolbert wades into the liminal space that exists between water and Black memory.
21 min
12
Ten Love Letters to the Earth – Thich Nhat Hanh...
In honor of the passing of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, we are sharing his Ten Love Letters to the Earth. These meditations are an invitation to engage in a living dialogue with our Earth.
50 min
13
Coming Home to the Cove: A Story of Family, Mem...
As the Point Reyes National Seashore deliberates the fate of Theresa Harlan’s family homestead, she continues her grassroots efforts to involve the wider community in protecting the last standing Coast Miwok structures on Tomales Bay.
64 min
14
Coming Home to the Cove: A Story of Family, Mem...
Episode Two traces thousands of years of Indigenous presence and history in the greater San Francisco Bay area, all the way through the oppressive colonial systems that have become today’s mainstream culture, and asks: Who gets to define history?
63 min
15
Coming Home to the Cove: A Story of Family, Mem...
Theresa Harlan shares the story of her Coast Miwok family’s eviction from their homestead on a cove in Tomales Bay—an uprooting which ended her family’s time there but did not sever their connection to the ancestral lands and waters of Tamal-liwa.
48 min
16
From Dirt – Camille T. Dungy
Camille T. Dungy reflects on the legacy and journey, triumph and trauma, of seeds.
16 min
17
The Ecology of Perception – a conversation with...
In this interview, 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
18
An Unbroken Grace – Fred Bahnson
Fred Bahnson reflects on the life of Barry Lopez, a storyteller whose encounters with mystery and the more-than-human informed his practice of writing stories that illuminate and heal.
35 min
19
A Whale in the Desert: Tracing Paths of Migrati...
Tristan McConnell journeys across Turkana in Kenya’s Rift Valley, a place whose long story is still being written by a shape-shifting landscape and changing patterns of human and nonhuman migration.
51 min
20
Be Earth Now – Rainer Maria Rilke recited by Jo...
Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy read a selection of poems from Rainer Maria Rilke’s "Book of Hours: Love Poems to God," reminding us of our role in loving the world.
21 min
21
Beings Seen and Unseen – a conversation with Am...
In this wide-ranging conversation, Amitav Ghosh calls on storytellers to lead us in the necessary work of collective reimagining: decentering human narratives and re-centering stories of the land.
42 min
22
Reseeding the Food System – a conversation with...
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
23
They Carry Us With Them – Pt. 2: Sugar Maple, P...
The migrations of sugar maple, paper birch, and red spruce are shared here as short vignettes, each offering a glimpse of just one facet of tree migration.
19 min
24
They Carry Us With Them – Pt.1: Introduction an...
Around the world, scores of species of trees are moving north, or west, or upslope. What is at stake as the forests change around us? Experience four stories of tree migration.
59 min
25
Making Relatives – Diane Wilson
Endeavoring to restore balance between the native and invasive plants around her home, Diane Wilson makes a relationship with the most aggressive species, asking: what does it mean to be a good relative to the land?
29 min
26
Finding Joy in the Unknown – a conversation wit...
In this interview 17 year-old Dara McAnulty—author and naturalist—speaks about his identity as an autistic person, his award-winning book, and the necessity of staying rooted in joy.
42 min
27
A Little More Than Kin – Richard Powers
Reflecting on whether there is a genetic basis for altruism, Richard Powers looks at how human beings find kinship with other creatures.
19 min
28
Invasives: Unknitting Despair in a Tangled Land...
As invasive plants proliferate around her home in Toronto, Catherine Bush considers her family’s own history as transplanted immigrants and how acts of reciprocity and care for the land might unknit despair.
30 min
29
Language Keepers, Episode 4: Wukchumni
In honor of Marie Wilcox, the last fluent speaker of the Wukchumni language.
28 min
30
Atascosa Borderlands – Jack Dash and Luke Swenson
In the Atascosa Highlands, the silverleaf oak and saguaros have no sense that the land around them is divided between the US and Mexico. But as the border wall imposes a hard boundary, this ecological crossroads faces an increasingly fragmented future.
23 min
31
Living in the Bones – Bathsheba Demuth
On a moose hunt north of the Arctic Circle, Bathsheba Demuth observes two contrasting narratives manifest along the banks of the Ch’izhìn Nji: one of conquest, another of quiet knowing and restraint.
26 min
32
Speaking the Anthropocene – a conversation with...
In this interview, Robert Macfarlane articulates the consequence and responsibility, as well as the pleasure, of naming the living world.
76 min
33
Against Nature Writing – Charles Foster
Seeking to express communion with the more-than-human world, Charles Foster begins to wonder if language can do anything other than constrain and tame the tangled wild.
31 min
34
Paradise Extended – Natalie Rose Richardson
As Natalie Rose Richardson searches for her great-grandfather’s grave in a historically segregated cemetery, she confronts the American notion of paradise and the walls erected to protect it.
36 min
35
Joy is the Justice We Give Ourselves – J. Drew ...
In this poem, J. Drew Lanham celebrates radical acts of joy by lifting up liberation, reparations, justice, and deep connection to ancestors and the living world.
12 min
36
Meltwater: A Timepiece for the Arctic – Stephen...
As Stephen Lezak explores the paradoxical human narratives that overlay the Arctic landscape, he bears witness to a place that is teetering in an uneasy balance between eternity and loss.
34 min
37
A Forest Walk – a guided practice by Kimberly R...
This guided practice by Kimberly Ruffin offers ways to connect to the living world through a walk in the forest.
47 min
38
The Life Story of a Recipe – Gina Rae La Cerva
Through legacies of wild food gathering and feasting, Gina Rae La Cerva traces the traditions that have brought her family joy and sustenance, even in times of grief, conquest, and migration.
35 min
39
Return of the Foreigners – Nick Hunt
Nick Hunt ventures into the Forest of Dean seeking the unruly, twilight realm of the boar—a creature who brings him to the boundary between wildness and civilization, history and myth.
32 min
40
The Forest of Orchids – Heather Swan
As Colombia continues to suffer violence and unrest, one family is cultivating resiliency and healing by planting thousands of native orchids across a restored mountainside.
34 min
41
The Nightingale's Song – a conversation with Sa...
Singer Sam Lee speaks about the transformative experience of creating songs in collaboration with nightingales and the space for communion that is opened with silence.
51 min
42
Where the Horses Sing – Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Witnessing a growing wasteland, Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee seeks the threshold that could bring us back to the place where the land sings—to a deep ecology of consciousness that returns our awareness to a fully animate world.
20 min
43
We’re Gonna Carry That Weight a Long Time – Dav...
David Farrier reflects on the immense burden of materials that mark our place on Earth.
25 min
44
Turn Towards the Dark – Hala Alyan
In reckoning with a precarious world, Hala Alyan reluctantly steps into the realm of fear.
41 min
45
Ravens and Doves – Jeffrey Jerome Cohen and Jul...
In the face of present-day environmental catastrophe and social injustice, Jeffrey Jerome Cohen and Julian Yates examine the opposing narratives of survival in the story of Noah’s Ark.
39 min
46
Finding the Mother Tree – a conversation with S...
Suzanne Simard, the renowned scientist who discovered the “wood-wide web,” speaks about mother trees and how to heal our separation from the living world.
64 min
47
The Voices of Birds and the Language of Belongi...
David G. 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.
24 min
48
Sanctuaries of Silence
In celebration of Earth Day, we are resharing the podcast adaptation of our award-winning virtual reality experience, Sanctuaries of Silence, an immersive listening journey into the Hoh Rainforest, one of the quietest places left in North America.
14 min
49
QIKIQTAĠRUK: Almost an Island – Lauren Oakes
As she reflects on what will be needed to build resilience in the face of an uncertain future, Lauren Oakes considers the meeting place of scientific knowledge and Indigenous ways of knowing.
27 min
50
Be Earth Now – Rainer Maria Rilke recited by Jo...
Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy read a selection of poems from Rainer Maria Rilke’s "Book of Hours: Love Poems to God," reminding us of our role in loving the world.
21 min
51
River at the Heart of the World – Arati Kumar-Rao
Arati Kumar-Rao ventures into a forested river gorge in the hidden land of Pemakö, which exists deep within the heart of the Tibetan Buddhist belief system. Long considered impenetrable, the grind of industry now threatens this prophesied “promised land.”
27 min
52
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.
60 min
53
The Stories I Haven’t Been Told – Jamie Figueroa
Jamie Figueroa navigates generational trauma and lost ancestral stories in order to reveal and reclaim her cultural and familial inheritance.
49 min
54
Once I Took a Weeklong Walk in the Sahara – Ann...
On a weeklong journey across the Sahara Desert, Anna Badkhen contemplates human movement across shifting landscapes and what remains eternal in the face of erasure.
43 min
55
Keeping the World in Being: Meditations on Long...
In pursuit of a contemplative inner life amid a world in upheaval, Fred Bahnson meditates on longing and maintaining an attentive heart.
29 min
56
Thirteen to One: New Stories for an Age of Disa...
Recalling the myth of the giant catfish Ōnamazu—said to reside beneath the Japanese archipelago and cause earthquakes—Marie Mutsuki Mockett considers stories that could change our relationship with what we call “nature.”
24 min
57
A Convergent Imagining – J. Drew Lanham
What if Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rachel Carson had met? Imagining an exchange in the year 1964, J. Drew Lanham explores the power and necessity of convergence.
24 min
58
The Inward Migration in Apocalyptic Times – Ale...
Australian Aboriginal author Alexis Wright turns inward to the dwelling place of ancestral story.
40 min
59
Unraveling the Stitches – Kalyanee Mam
Tracing her father’s struggle for acceptance in the US after her family fled the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, Kalyanee Mam reflects on the false promise of the American Dream and the deep belonging she finds in the wisdom of her ancestors.
47 min
60
The Druid Renaissance – Lucy Jones
Seeking a way to honor the earth amid a culture of ecological destruction, British author Lucy Jones arrives at Druidry, a mysterious and ancient tradition that speaks clearly to the essential problems of our time.
45 min
61
Illuminating Kirinyaga – Tristan McConnell
Meaning and Knowing in Mount Kenya’s Forests
34 min
62
The Coronavirus Pandemic and the Invisibility o...
As urbanization increasingly severs humanity from the living world, naturalist Michael McCarthy explores the ways in which the “anthropause” ushered in by the coronavirus has made nature visible again.
29 min
63
The Serviceberry: An Economy of Abundance – Rob...
As Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy.
47 min
64
Radical Dharma – a conversation with angel Kyod...
In this interview, Rev. angel Kyodo williams reflects on our crisis of story, the failure of institutional religion, and Radical Dharma.
39 min
65
The Meaning of Air – Boyce Upholt
Boyce Upholt forges into a deep inquiry of air, searching for meaning in the delicate balance of elements that allows life on Earth to flourish.
26 min
66
The Memory Field – Jake Skeets
Musing on the Diné perspective of time, memory, and land.
30 min
67
Reseeding the Food System – an Interview with R...
Rowen White discusses how seeds hold the link between cultural revitalization and the restoration of traditional foodways.
48 min
68
Coyote Story – CMarie Fuhrman
CMarie Fuhrman encounters a coyote whose leg is caught in a trap in the Montana prairie. As she decides what to do, she considers what it means to be trapped and what it means to be free.
22 min
69
Reindeer at the End of the World – Bathsheba De...
Bathsheba Demuth observes the rise and ruin of the Soviet ideology that sought to impose its utopian vision on the Native Chukchi people, their herds of reindeer, and the natural cycles of the Russian tundra.
30 min
70
Fermentation as Metaphor – a conversation with ...
In this interview, Sandor Katz, an expert in fermented foods, considers the liberating and connective experience that engagement with microbial communities offers.
45 min
71
East to Eden – Roger Deakin with Robert Macfarlane
Robert Macfarlane narrates a chapter from Roger Deakin’s book Wildwood: A Journey Through Trees.
57 min
72
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
73
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
74
Language Keepers, Episode 6: The Power of Revit...
Hear from speakers of endangered languages who are increasingly resisting predictions of extinction.
34 min
75
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
76
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
77
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
78
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
79
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
80
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
81
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
82
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
83
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
84
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
85
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
86
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
87
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
88
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
89
Courting the Wild Twin – Martin Shaw
Mythologist and storyteller Martin Shaw on initiation, agency, and the move into the mythical.
55 min
90
The Other House: Musings on the Diné Perspectiv...
Poet Jake Skeets explores apocalypse, time, and futurity from a Diné perspective.
26 min
91
Beginning with the End – Roy Scranton
Roy Scranton on what we mean when we say "the world is ending."
44 min
92
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
93
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
94
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
95
Sanctuaries of Silence
Join acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton on an immersive listening journey to the Hoh Rainforest in Olympic National Park.
14 min
96
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
97
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
98
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
99
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
100
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