We’re living in a world that is perpetually bathed in artificial light. We repel the dark. Yet, we live in the midst of what is often referred to as “dark times.” How can gazing upon the night sky connect us to a greater sense of space, beauty, and possibility? Are we able to come into a relationship with something infinitely bigger than ourselves? How can we be present and engaged amid the realities of environmental crisis, inequality, and shifting political tides? Whether you live in the city or someplace where the outdoors is more accessible, this final episode in our summer of practice audio series invites you to immerse yourself in nightfall and welcome the night as a window into mystery and awe.

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Illustrations by Aldo Jarillo.

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What does it mean to listen without judgement, allowing your ears to be present, open, and curious? Inspired by our virtual reality film Sanctuaries of Silence, which follows acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton as he documents the sounds of the Hoh Rain Forest in western Washington State, this practice invites you to discover how a new experience of sound and silence can profoundly impact your relationship to place. By taking in sounds with equal value and becoming aware of the presence and absence of noise, voices, and quiet, the simple act of listening can help us come to know a landscape through the senses, rooting us in the power of sound and silence.

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Illustration by Aldo Jarillo.

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Biologist David G. Haskell calls the practice of listening to other species the original “augmented reality.” In opening our minds to the language of the species around us, we can experience connection and meaning that far transcends anything offered by an electronic substitute. This week, we’re sharing the next instalment in our Summer of Practice podcast series with a practice David wrote for us that invites you to attune to the birdcall near your home; become aware of the ecological rhythms and connections around and within you; and step into a sense of belonging as the conversations of humans and birds intertwine.

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Illustration by Aldo Jarillo.

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We continue our summer of practice with a second series of audio practices throughout August. In this episode, you are encouraged to respond to the ways trees invite you—through bloom, shade, wonder, breath—into closer relationship. From the old-growth forests whose presence precedes our lifetimes to the rooted sentinels of our own backyards, trees are humans’ oldest and most constant companions. This practice calls you to bring a renewed quality of attention to the threads that bind you and trees together within a shared biosphere.

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Illustration by Aldo Jarillo.

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In this episode, we bring you the final Time audio practice—the fourth in a series exploring how we can come to dwell within a kind of time that is in relationship with the Earth, rather than the clock. This invitation draws your attention to the Earth’s immense capacity for recording the passage of time. Imagine your way backwards through millennia and then forward into the far future, as your journey through your homeplace, attentive to the histories held within its topography, ecosystems, and human markings.

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Illustration by Aldo Jarillo.

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In Ancient Greek mythology, the old and powerful god Chronos oversaw the linear progression of time. Kairos, the youthful, wing-footed god of opportunity, expressed the possibility within a given moment. This practice—the third in our summer audio series—orients you towards “kairos time”: openings in time in the wake of change; timing that moment itself dictates. Explore how your sense of time determines how you participate in the world, and how you might balance a reliance on structured time with an openness to the unpredictable. 

Explore the online version of this practice or shop our practice booklet, A Practice in Time.

Illustration by Aldo Jarillo.

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This summer, we’re sharing a series of audio practices—each inviting you into an experience of Earth time. This episode orients you towards one of the simplest practices you can do to shift your sense of time: walking. Follow the metronomic rhythm of your feet—down a bustling street or through a secluded woodland—and learn how moving at your most natural pace allows you to form relationships with what surrounds you. Receptive to the present moment, open to a simultaneous experience of deep inwardness and profound outer attentiveness, and step into the expanse of the timeless. 

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Illustration by Aldo Jarillo.

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What happens when we’re able to inhabit time—even if momentarily—in an entirely new way? And how could this shift the way we relate and engage with each other, with the presence of mystery, and of course, with the Earth? Over the summer we're featuring a special series of audio practices exploring Time. This first episode invites you to attune to how your body and those of nearby more-than-human beings are in conversation with your ecosystem via internal clocks. Creating time together with the Earth, you are attentive to the pulses within and around you, and time can become an experience of kinship.

Explore the online version of this practice or shop our practice booklet, A Practice in Time.

Illustration by Aldo Jarillo.

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Potawatomi botanist and author Robin Wall Kimmerer visits the Andrews Experimental Forest in Oregon, where over the course of two centuries scientists will study how old-growth trees and their decomposition contribute to the biogeochemical cycles of the Earth. For the forest’s cedar trees, Robin says, death is merely a transition—a rearrangement of elements from one species to the next. What might this teach us about the nature of our own “afterlife?” Can this cyclical ecology be an experimental theology? This episode is the final in a series we are sharing in partnership with the Center for Humans and Nature.

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Illustration by Ibrahim Rayintakath.

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In this third story we’re sharing in partnership with the Center for Humans and Nature, ecosystem ecologist Liam Heneghan turns to a council of philosophers and physicists to help reconcile the human experience of growth with the reality of decay as he keeps vigil by his father’s bedside. He contemplates how closely life sits at the margins of death—one bleeding into the other—and wonders what can be learned from the everyday breakdown of leaves, milk, friendships, solar systems that might orient us to the nature of our own passage from life to death. As his father passes—elements dispersing into air and soil—Liam recognizes that all that flourishes must return to Earth; that in decay, something always endures. 

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Illustration by Ibrahim Rayintakath.

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