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.

Support the show

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.

Support the show

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.

Support the show

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.

Support the show

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.

Support the show

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.

Support the show

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.

Support the show

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.

Support the show

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.

Support the show

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.

Support the show